Fall 08 Fall 08

LESTER LITERARY AGENCY & ASSOCIATES

NON FICTION

Spring 2019

Russia Ukraine Belarus

HIGHLIGHTS

HIGHLIGHTS 3 LITERARY REPORTAGE 8 CURRENT TOPICS 10 HISTORY 14 BIOGRAPHIES 19 CULTURAL ESSAYS 23 NATURE 27 ART / AESTHETICS 29 SOCIAL SCIENCES 32 TRUE STORIES/ MEMOIRS 33 SCIENCE 35 POPULAR SCIENCE 37 PSYCHOLOGY 40 EDUCATION & PARENTING 41 SELF-HELP 43 HEALTH & WELL BEING 44 NUTRITION 46 SPECIAL ILLUSTRATED PROJECTS 47 BESTSELLERS & BACKLIST 48

2 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue HIGHLIGHTS

André Comte-Sponville Michel Onfray CONTRE LA PEUR ET CENT AUTRES SAGESSE PROPOS (Wisdom: Living at The Foot of a Volcano) (Against Fear and Other Writings) Albin Michel, January 2019, 528 pages Albin Michel, March 2019, 432 pages

◊ English sample available.

◊ Some thougths are directly inspired by the news, ◊ Rights sold in: Italy (Ponte alle Grazie). many focus on politics and economy, others ◊ Ongoing offers in Romania, Brazil, Spain. religion, spirituality, philosophy and literature. ◊ Currently n°1 in the French bestseller list! This sober, limpid anthology covers a great variety of subjects, with an echo effect and a perceivable ◊ 90,000 copies sold. progression of the author’s thinking. ◊ A philosophical peplum as well as a moral treatise.

Sometimes current events become the pretext for vaster ◊ The Romans pre-Christian morals can be useful to our post-Christian times, because they answer reflections: the catastrophe of Fukushima opens a path to simply and clearly to existential questions. questioning of ecology; portraits of politicians lead to an investigation of the link between politics and truth, etc. ◊ This book is filled with these great little Roman André Comte-Sponville excels in this exercise, which he stories that enhance honour-based morals, the renders particularly effective. Effortlessly, readers penetrate polar opposite of Christian guilt. the secrets of everyday events and of today’s world by Sagesse explores the question of morals: we are living at following a guide that brings the basic challenges of philosophy within their grasp. the foot of a roaring volcano, how can we live and die with elegance? “By seeking the rules of the game with A walk through the news following the thread of a the Romans,” replies Michel Onfray. reflection that is philosophical, economic, political and moral, and above all, accessible to all readers. How is one to know how to behave in a society on the brink of collapse? By reading the Romans whose ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A humanist philosopher, André Comte- philosophy rely on examples rather than on whimsical Sponville has authored many books whose clarity and instructive theories! SAGESSE is a philosophical peplum in which we methods make philosophy accessible to all. His success has never assist to the death of Pliny the Elder, to gladiators combats, waned. Albin Michel published L’ESPRIT DE L’ATHÉISME (2006), to grand suicides, to banquets of ridiculous philosophers, to LE CAPITALISME EST-IL MORAL ? (2004, reprint 2008), LE sublime friendships and to assassinations that changed the GOÛT DE VIVRE (2010), LE SEXE NI LA MORT (2012), C’EST course of history. We befriend highly charismatic CHOSE TENDRE QUE LA VIE (Interviews with François L’Yvonnet, 2015). characters: Mucius Scaevola and his fiery coal, Regulus and his sewn eyelids, Cincinnatus and his plow, Lucretia and his dagger. But also, Seneca and Cicero, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. This book answers very pragmatic questions: How is one to make use of his time? How can one be strong while enduring pain? Is it possible to age gracefully? How can we apprehend death? Must we have children? What does it entail to keep our words? What does it mean to love? Can we be owners without being possessed? Should we get involve in politics? What does nature teach us? What does an ethic of honor entail? Before any disaster hits us, we can always live as the romans did, by knowing how to stand tall.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michel Onfray, author of almost a hundred books, constructed his work around the themes of hedonism, atheism and the construction of the self. Today he is the best-known and appreciated French philosopher with a wide public.

3 HIGHLIGHTS Amin Maalouf Boris Cyrulnik LE NAUFRAGE DES CIVILISATIONS LA NUIT J’ÉCRIRAI DES SOLEILS (The Shipwreck Of Civilisations) (At Night, I Would Write Suns) Grasset, February 2019, 320 pages Odile Jacob, April 2019, 304 pages

◊ Amin Maalouf, a leading expert on both the West ◊ Alongside Genet, Tolstoy and many others, a and the East, is eminently worth listening to. His perceptive and sensitive exploration of resilience intuitions turn out to be accurate predictions, as through a few great works in our literary canon: demonstrates the prescience he has of the great how writing can sometimes save a life, how words secrets before they work their way into the enable one to escape, to flee reality, or to create universal consciousness. Twenty years ago he was oneself, to create a world, one’s own, or to fill a expressing his concern at the rise of Murderous void, or to tell one’s story... Identities, and ten years ago at the Deregulation of the World. After Psychothérapie de Dieu, a new big book by Boris Cyrulnik on the power of literature to overcome ◊ His intellectual arguments and analyses are fascinating, and this book could very well become misfortune, and on our irrepressible need for fiction to a classic. live

Today Maalouf is convinced that we are on the “One writes to give shape to an uncertain world, to threshold of a global shipwreck whose impact will be felt escape the fog by illuminating a corner of our mental in every sphere of civilisation. This essay, born out of a world. The Second World War is the cause of my chaotic passion for world affairs and a sense of anxiety that has childhood. I now know, thanks to the intimate tales deep grown over the years, is a cry of alarm but not a down inside me, to the tales shared with a few close manifesto. friends, and to the tales that our culture tells about shattered childhoods, that it is still possible to ‘write suns.’ Although it remains the only superpower, America is in the process of losing all moral credibility. Europe, which offered Scarcity invites creativity, loss inspires art, being an orphan, its people and the rest of humanity the most ambitious and the writing of a novel. A life without action, without reassuring project of our time, is in the process of breaking encounters, and without a novel would be but an up. The Arab/Muslim world is embroiled in a profound existence without pleasure and without dreams, an icy crisis that has plunged its people into despair and is having chasm. This in part explains the frequency of orphans or of calamitous repercussions for the whole planet. Major early separations among the creative population. ‘emerging’ or ‘renascent’ nations such as China, India and Russia are taking a stand on the world stage in a toxic Indeed, among the great writers, how many were climate where self-interest and the law of the strongest orphaned children, neglected, rejected children, all of reign. A new arms race seems inevitable. Moreover, there whom battled loss with the written word? For them, the are serious threats (climate, environment, health) hanging simple act of writing changed the flavor of the world.” B. C. over the planet and with which we will be unable to deal without the global solidarity that is so sorely lacking. For ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Boris Cyrulnik is a neuropsychiatrist. He is the author of many books, all of them best-sellers, notably Un over half a century, the author has been travelling the merveilleux malheur; Sauve-toi, la vie t’appelle; and more recently world and observing it. He was in Saigon at the end of the , Psychothérapie de Dieu that has been translated into 10 Vietnam War and in Teheran when the Islamic Republic langugaes. Boris Cyrulnik’s books regularly sell more than 350,000 was ushered in. In this rich and powerful book, he is both copies. an engaged spectator and a thinker, blending stories and reflections. Sometimes he relates major events to which he happened to be one of the rare eye witnesses, and then he adopts the detached bird’s-eye view of the historian to explain to us how humankind has repeatedly drifted and now finds itself on the verge of a shipwreck.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amin Maalouf has published many novels and essays, including the major critical and commercial ORIGINES, LE DÉRÈGLEMENT DU MONDE, UN FAUTEUIL SUR LA SEINE, and LES DÉSORIENTÉS. His works have been widely translated all around the world.

4 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Grégoire Lois Arthur Lochmann QUAND LES OISEAUX NE CHANTENT PLUS LA VIE SOLIDE (When The Birds Stop Singing) (Solid Life: Carpentry as an Ethic for Doing) Fayard, April 2019, 250 pages Payot, January 2019, 204 pages

◊ Grégoire Loïs sounds the alarm. Against a ◊ Rights sold in: Italy (Ponte Alle Grazie). backdrop of environmental treaties, he gives us a deeply personal and subtle account of the species ◊ This learning story fused with humility intertwins that once were, those notably missing creatures, memories of creation and reflexions on the body, forgotten perhaps by humankind, the ghosts of an knowledge and the nature of work today. environment with no room for their song. ◊ The practice of carpentry as a means to You just need to go for a walk in the countryside to apprehend modern life in a serene manner. notice it: The birds have stopped singing. ◊ In a limpid and elegant style, Arthur Lochmann develops a material philosophy that helps give Rachel Carson’s 1962 prophecy of a silent spring is about direction to the frantic and fragmented era to be fulfilled, fifty years later and for the very same analysed by the German sociologist Zygmunt reasons, but with other, more highly effective means. Baumann in Liquid Life.! Indeed, the DDT and rodenticides of old seem This “apprentice’s tale” intertwines accounts from rudimentary compared to the neo-nicotinoids and construction sites and theoretical and philosophical pesticides of today. musings, both about being a carpenter and about Grégoire Loïs, ornithologist at the Museum of Natural artisanal trades in general. History in Paris, has witnessed the disaster firsthand, and every year it is getting worse. Figures show that rural bird Solid Life explores movements, bodies, knowledge, action populations have declined by a third in the past 15 years. and work today. Ten years ago, Arthur Lochmann dropped Birds are disappearing, taking with them their songs, their out of university, where he was studying law and flights and their diversity. What if birds were to vanish philosophy, to become a carpenter. Rather than the altogether? constant headlong rush forward, pairing modern techniques with a return to traditional knowledge, skills and ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Grégoire Loïs is an ornithologist at the ways of relating to the world is a factor of progress for our Museum of Natural History in Paris. times. Because doing one’s work with care and attention means bringing meaning to one’s acts; learning and transmitting traditional skills means preserving our shared heritage; and building means working for the long term: carpentry as an ethic for our modernity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Arthur Lochmann, 32, is a translator, a philosopher and a carpenter.

“ Here is a valuable book as it draws on a geniune and personal experience. Valuable because it goes beyound the artificial separation between thinking and doing.” Livres Hebdo

5 HIGHLIGHTS François Taddei Jean Michel Jarre APPRENDRE AU XXIE SIÈCLE RODÉO MÉLANCOLIQUE (Learning in the 21st century) (Melancholic Rodeo) Calmann Levy, September 2018, 300 pages Robert Laffont, October 2019, 400 pages

◊ Complete manuscript expected Spring 2019 ◊ International version of the text, in which the some excerpts of the current book which are ◊ English sample chapter available focused on France are cut or adapted available. The life of Jean-Michel Jarre is a novel no author could ◊ François Taddei calls for a (r)evolution of ever have imagined, one that mixes determination with knowledge in his book. As he takes the reader on the unbelievable, commitment and the unexpected, a journey through the twists and turns of the sincerity and the sensational, solitude and the masses. human brain, the learning process’ best friend and worst enemy, he suggests that we “learn to He now recounts his mad and completely unorthodox unlearn”. journey in this stunning book, much more than a mere biography of a famous musician, but rather a ◊ He proposes innovative ideas about how to learn with others, in a cooperative manner, just as other captivating rodeo. living organisms have done since the origins of life and explores all the necessary questions to ensure The hand of John Cage, my mother’s courage and heroism, an evolution in society and education in line with trains, all the trains, my grandfather playing records on his scientific advances and new technologies. portable Teppaz, clowns and tears, Jean Vilar’s firefighter, the stroke of Pierre Boulez’s baton, the knitting machine, A comprehensible science book, putting all the major ennui and Chateau Marmont, the Saint-Ouen flea market contemporary debates into perspective and the trumpet violin, 1968-1972, Pierre Schaeffer and Les Shadoks, women and After Eights, Chagall’s ceiling for In 1997, an IBM computer, Deep Blue, beat world the Paris Opera, whores and soldiers, Christophe’s “Mots champion Garry Kasparov in a game of chess. The next bleus” and “Paradis perdus,” the moment the Chinese day, The Economist headlined with, “If your job is like discovered expresso, guitar and synths, Lady Di’s safety pin, chess, it’s time to change jobs”. Yet, twenty years on, our the walls of my bedroom, Berlin and elsewhere, Houston educational system is still based on memorising information and NASA, Pope Jean Paul II’s feet, Chet Baker’s trumpet, and calculations, tasks that any machine can complete Lyon and elephants, Beijing, Moscow, Paris, the Pyramids, more efficiently than humans. A major transition is the friend of the student in Tiananmen Square, an ugly currently underway in the history of our evolution. The woman in Hollywood, Chopin and Lech Walesa, Oxygène development of artificial intelligence and the advances in and oxymorons, the music of Pierre Soulages, 2001 and the field of genetics pose two new and unprecedented Vestiges of the Future, the Docklands concerts, the challenges to humankind. So then why are education, resistance of Edward Snowden, the bust of Beethoven, research, and our approach to learning not adapting quickly Coachella and the Sahara, Salvador Dali calling me, enough in a world undergoing such major transformations? Charlotte’s compass whistle, the little girl and the Star of What is man’s place in a world of machines? How can we Lenin, Nino Rota, the trees of the Forbidden City, the use technology to help develop our collective intelligence? Germans and the Nazis, a billboard in Los Angeles, Pollock and electronica, the solitude of a sound chaser, the loss of ABOUT THE AUTHOR: François Taddei graduated from the my father. Beyond this inventory à la Jacques Prévert, what prestigious French engineering school, “l’Ecole polytechnique”, is it meant for? What logic is there in all this? When Jean- and is now a biologist specialising in genetics and a researcher at Michel Jarre launches into telling us his story, at once the Inserm, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, where he was awarded with their Research Prize. He intimate and universal, his writing takes the reader right to also set up the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Paris. the heart of world full of the extraordinary, of meetings, Collaborating with several working groups, he submitted in April trips, sounds, emotions, untranquility, sensuality, shadows 2008 a report, “Towards a Learning Society”, to the Ministers of and lights, all giving rhythm to a subterranean melancholy. Labour, National and Higher Education, and Research and Innovation. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jean-Michel Jarre is a pioneer of electronic music, whose success is still growing today. He rose to fame during the 1970s and 80s, and has to date sold 80 million albums worldwide. He has now chosen to recount his completely unorthodox journey for the first time.

6 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Jean Abitbol Alain Braconnier VOIX DE FEMMES COURAGE RÊVONS (Voices of Woman) (Be Brave – Let’s Dream!) Odile Jacob, February 2019, 256 pages Odile Jacob, February 2019, 240 pages

◊ Under option in: Russia. ◊ In line with Alain Braconnier’s previous books on optimism: Optimiste and L’Enfant optimiste. ◊ A comprehensive book on the female voice by one of the best specialists, who works with people ◊ Highly instructive, the book offers plenty of advice whose voice is their primary tool: teachers, and a methodology on attitudes to develop. singers, men and women politicians How to Think of the Future Without Stressing Out A ◊ The characteristics of the female voice: influences concrete psychology to think better about the future of the hormonal cycle, weaknesses, gynecological pathologies Today, a large number of people – parents, couples, young Understanding the specificities of the female voice and adults, people of all ages – are feeling a sort of melancholy caring for it. about the future. Of course, there are new ways of living, of creating, the progress made in the realm of knowledge, Each woman has a different voice. The voice is the imprint, in medicine and science overall, is constant and staggering. the signature of the personality. Doesn’t it vary in function Except that we have the feeling of having aged a of the emotions we are feeling? The reflection of the soul, millennium in just a few years, and of advancing in a world it also bears vital power, and the power of female that has never been so uncertain. Nothing is simple in this seduction. world whose bearings change at the speed of light.

But more than that of a man, a woman’s voice evolves and And yet we must above all not lose “the courage to changes in the course of her life. dream”, to dream of a better future, a human future. But how can we do this in concrete terms? Which personal How does it appear? What is the role of genetics? Why is attitudes should we develop? a voice gendered? What is the influence of pitch? The voice of a woman, a feminine voice, a transgender voice – This is what Alain Braconnier proposes in this book, which what does this mean? comes out of his patients’ questions and the responses he has provided them. It is possible for each one of us, at any All these questions are addressed in this book, conceived age, to think about the future while developing certain as a great voyage into the universe of the female voice, a specific attitudes when the uncertainty of tomorrow starts book whose objective is to better understand its flashing red. In order to fight against the melancholy of the characteristics, linked to the hormonal cycle, and better future. protect it from any harm. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alain Braconnier is a psychologist, psychiatrist, former director of the Association de Santé mentale ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Jean Abitbol is an ENT physician, in the 13th arrondissement in Paris, head of APEP [Association pathologist, and cervicofacial surgeon. For more than 30 years he Psychanalyse et Psychothérapies] training at the Pitié-Salpêtrière has devoted his scientific and surgical career to the human voice. hospital, and emeritus professor at the École des Psychologues Enthralled by the mystery of the human voice, he has developed Praticiens. He is the author of best-selling books including MÈRE innovative diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. ET FILS; LES FILLES ET LES PÈRES; PETIT OU GRAND ANXIEUX; ÊTRE PARENT AUJOURD’HUI; PROTÉGER SON SOI; and OPTIMISTE.

7 LITERARY REPORTAGE LITERARY REPORTAGE

Éric Vuillard Yseult Williams LA GUERRE DES PAUVRES LA SPLENDEUR DES BRUNHOFF (The War of the Poor) (The Splendour of the Brunhoffs) Actes Sud, January 2019, 96 pages Fayard, October 2018, 400 pages

1524, the poor rise in the south of Germany. The ◊ Rights sold: Quetzal (Portuguese/Portugal). insurrection spreads, swiftly reaches Switzerland and ◊ Yseult Williams delved deep into the Brunhoffs’ Alsace. A silhouette stands out from the chaos, that of a private life through their archives and theologian, a young man, fighting among the insurgents. correspondence, as well as interviews with their His name is Thomas Müntzer. His terrible life is descendants. romantic. It means that she deserved to be lived; it ◊ Like the saga of a royal house, Yseult Williams deserves to be told. presents the Brunhoffs as one of the most influential families in late 19th and early 20th- In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation launched century Paris. an attack on privilege and the Catholic church, but it ◊ Reading the history of the Brunhoffs means rapidly became an established and bourgeois authority reading the history of Paris. Both political events, itself. The rural labourers and the poor of the cities, who like the 1871 Paris Commune; and cultural ones, were still being promised equality in heaven, began to ask: like the launch of Vogue magazine and the ‘And why shouldn’t we have equality here and now on upheaval caused by Christian Dior’s irruption in earth?’ the world of fashion, are all part of the backdrop for the family’s evolution. There ensued a furious struggle between the powerful, the ◊ The author was given exclusive access to the comfortable protestants and the others: the wretched. family archives and the result is a rich text, They were led by a number of theologians, one of whom complemented by a photo insert. has left his mark in history through his determination and his sheer energy. His name was Thomas Müntzer and he ◊ It covers the late 19th century when Maurice de set Germany on fire. La guerre des pauvres recounts his Brunhoff arrives in France, until the late 1950s. story - that of an insurrection through the Word, which This is the fascinating story of four generations of the appropriately enough finds its echo in the inventive power Brunhoff family, famous worldwide thanks to Jean de of Éric Vuillard’s prose. Brunhoff, the creator of the Babar books. The War of the Poor relates a brutal episode in the history The Brunhoff family, although very discreet, were of major popular uprisings. extremely influential (they introduced Yves Saint Laurent to Christian Dior). They were behind Vogue and Vu and ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Éric Vuillard is a writer and filmmaker who was born in Lyon in 1968. His works published by Actes Sud socialized with the major intel- lectuals and artists of their include TRISTESSE DE LA TERRE (2014, Prix Joseph-Kessel) and time (Guillaume Apollinaire, Colette, Pablo Picasso, Dalí, L’ORDRE DU JOUR (2017), for which he won the Prix Jean Cocteau, etc.). They also became the personal Goncourt enemies of Hitler and Goebbels. Marie-Claude Vaillant- Couturier, Cosette de Brunhoff’s daughter, was a resistant “Vuillard est un maître démystificateur, qui ne laisse during World War II, survived both the Auschwitz and rien dormir dans l’ombre. Sa seule politesse, il la garde Ravensbrück camps, and was the only French woman pour la langue française, qu’il sert avec une ironie among the witnesses at the Nuremberg trials, where she décapante et une grâce comme on n’en lit pas si testified in German, looking each criminal in the eyes. souvent.” L’OBS ABOUT THE AUTHOR Yseult Williams launched the magazine Grazia in France in 2008, before reviving Lui in 2013 alongside Frédéric Beigbeder. Her first book IMPÉRATRICES DE LA MODE was published in 2015 by La Martinière.

8 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Rebecca Benhamou Fanny Chiarello L’HORIZON A POUR ELLE DÉNOUÉ SA A HAPPY WOMAN CEINTURE (Meeting Meredith Monk) (For Her the Horizon Unbuckled His Belt) L’Olivier, March 2019, 192 pages Chana Orloff (1888-1968) Fayard, March 2019, 296 pages

◊ A book studded with excerpts from interviews and photographs by the author, which reads like a literary travelogue ◊ Rebecca Benhamou was granted access to the Chana Orloff family archives to give us an ◊ A picturesque style that conveys the complicity unprecedented biography of a major artist of the and intimacy between the two artists well, while early 20th century. also including a writer’s critical gaze over both their own work and others’. ◊ Orloff close friends with Soutine, Modigliani and Apollinaire, and a great forgotten figure of ◊ The encounter with Meredith Monk, a brilliant modern art. New York-based avant-garde artist, and her circle of musicians will make readers want to discover

◊ The exceptional destiny of an internationally Monk’s fascinating work. renowned artist, a woman who chose to live freely and emancipate herself from her background. The very intimate narrative of an encounter between ◊ A dive into the artistic Paris in the early 20th two artists: the writer Fanny Chiarello and the American century alongside Picasso, Soutine, Modigliani and avant-garde composer Meredith Monk. Apollinaire. This book is not a biography of Monk, but the intimate ◊ A richly documented story that unveils the retelling of the encounters between Fanny Chiarello and intimacy of an artist through correspondence, poems and diaries. the star of the avant-garde, which took place over a month in New York City, from October 5th to November 5th Chana Orloff, a major artist of the early 20th century. 2017. For the first time, thanks to Rebecca Benhamou’s access to the Chana Orloff family archives, this narrative non- Meredith Monk became a prominent figure of the New fiction book offer a fascinating biography of this great York avant-garde in the mid-1960s. Her shows mixed a forgotten figure of modern art. variety of disciplines (theatre, dance, music), all of which she practiced to the same high standard. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts—the highest artistic honour in Chana Orloff (1888-1968) arrived in Paris in the summer the USA—by Barack Obama. of 1910 with only one thing in mind: The desire to be free. But what is freedom for a woman at the turn of the 20th A silent observer in the corner of the studio, a fascinator century, other than remaining single? To fulfil her dreams, spectator in the seat of the Lincoln Center and the amused Chana had fled the pogroms of Russia and the fields of host in the kitchen of a loft, Fanny Chiarello attended Palestine, where her family was begging her to return. rehearsals and shows, and accompanied the artist in her At the age of twenty-two, she hardly imagined that the day-to-day life. Nothing escaped her, her retelling capturing bohemians of Montparnasse would make her a queen reality in flight, while also taking into account her and a world-renowned sculptor. In Paris, she would know expectations, admiration and disappointments. all the great artists, then marry a friend of Apollinaire’s – while quietly exploring her bisexuality at a time when the ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fanny Chiarello was born in 1974. She rive gauche was a hotbed of free love. But after those is the author of several novels and collections of poetry. She has carefree days, the war breaks out - and the intoxication of published four novels at Editions de l’Olivier, INCLUDING DANS the Roar- ing Twenties is but a distant memory. Thus SON PROPRE RÔLE in 2015, which won the Orange book begins an extraordinary epic journey, to save her life – prize, and LA VIE EFFAÇANT TOUT CHOSE (2018). She is and the freedom she has never renounced. undoubtedly one of the most singular voices of the young French novel. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rebecca Benhamou lives between Paris, London and Tel Aviv. She graduated in geopolitics from King’s College and the London School of Economics, then worked for Arte TV. She currently writes for the French, American and Israeli press (L’Express, Marie Claire, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Times of Israel…).

9 CURRENT TOPICS maintenance of our nuclear power plants) to an American CURRENT TOPICS company: General Electric! My story is that of a man caught up in an implacable mechanism: Arbitrary detention in Frédéric Pierucci & Matthieu Aron terrifying conditions, prosecutors whose principal duty is LE PIÈGE AMÉRICAIN financial gain, flawed trials… My story illustrates the secret (The American Trap) economic war that the United States is waging against JC Lattès, January 2019 France and other countries. My story is a fight for truth to be known.”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Former senior executive of Alstom in the Philippines, Frédéric Pierucci’s life is turned upside-down on April 4th 2013 when he is arrested by the FBI under the Foreign Corruption Practice Act that allows the arrest of anyone, anywhere for suspicion of corruption. Matthieu Aron is a journalist and former associate director of the Nouvel Observateur and former managing editor at France Inter. He has followed Frédéric Pierucci’s story since the beginning. ◊ English sample available. « Le récit est haletant, mêlant scenes de vie et ◊ Over 30,000 copies sold enquête de fond. » L’OBS ◊ Rights sold in: Japan, China (auction). “The case raises uncomfortable questions about ◊ 5 weeks on the bestselling lists. American officials’s uncompromising techniques.” The ◊ A lot of movie producer interests!! Economist ◊ Recently released, this shocking testimony by has already gathered tremendous interest from French and international press, including articles in The Economist and the FAZ in Germany.

◊ Pieruci’s story comes as auto titan Ghosn remains in prison.

◊ Fascinating and well documented, this book reveals the mecanisms of economical destabilisation that many countries experience. ◊ A true economic thriller showing how American law can profoundly destabilize international businesses. THE book which describes the best the actual economic situation from the inside, by someone who experienced it and spent 2 years in a maximum security American prison. This true economic thriller explains how American law can profoundly destabilize international businesses.

Alstom, General Electric and the American justice system… This is the story of a man caught in the middle of a huge American destabilizing operation. “Who is aware of the fact that in 2014 Americans took control of all French nuclear power plants and 4 nuclear submarines? My name is Frédéric Pierucci and I found myself, through no fault of my own, at the heart of this little-known international scandal. Ex-senior executive of Alstom, I know the facts behind this 12 million dollar thriller and have decided, with journalist Matthieu Aron, to reveal them to the general public. On a professional trip to New York in April 2013, I was arrested and accused of corruption involving the multinational company that employed me. I never received a cent through this transaction but the American authorities locked me up for 14 months in a maximum security prison. I was a hostage and used as blackmail to force my company to pay the largest fine ever imposed by the United States. The consequences were a complete dismembering of Alstom, a company of highly strategic activities and a flagship of French industry. Alstom was forced to sell its energy branch (in charge of the 10 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Nathalie Schuck & Ava Djamshidi Amélie Poinssot MADAME LA PRÉSIDENTE DANS LA TÊTE DE VIKTOR ORBÁN (Mrs President) (In the mind of Viktor Orbán) Plon, February 2019, 336 pages Actes Sud, March 2019, 224 pages

◊ Brigitte Macron agreed to meet the authors of this ◊ Through research and interviews, this book book within the framework of their investigation. attempts to get inside the mind of the Hungarian leader. ◊ The books shows the true role Brigitte Macron is playing, her influence, her outspokenned. ◊ Previous title in the same series: In the mind of Vladimir Poutine (rights sold in UK (Hurst), ◊ All subjects are tackled; her age, her lifestyle, her Germany Klett), Poland (Studio Emka), Greece thoughts and reaction to people’s comments. (Diametros), Spain (Librooks), Norway (Lava ◊ Brigitte Macron is considered by several forlag), Turkey (Iletisim). journalists as a potential presidential candidate un Who is Viktor Orbán really? What are his ideological, the future. literary and historical reference points? ◊ Previous title published by Plon about Emmanuel Macron in 2017 was sold in 12 languages. Orbán has a more solid grip on power than most of his The first investigation into the political influence of European Union counterparts. He runs his country in an Brigitte Macron, the First Lady who has acquired the authoritarian fashion and does not shy away from outrageous political campaigns. His clampdown on civil nickname “Mrs. President.” liberties and the xenophobic measures he has introduced have merely consolidated his position. This champion of A weapon of mass communication, Brigitte Macron is ‘illiberal democracy’ also evokes memories of the practically an icon for many French people, who are authoritarian and antisemitic Hungarian right of of the fascinated with the storybook life of a woman who has inter-war years. gone, in just three short years, from standing in front of a classroom to sitting down to state dinners with the world’s In opposing any European policy aimed at hosting refugees, most powerful leaders. Everyone knows Brigitte Macron’s Viktor Orbán has managed to carve himself out a slender figure, sunny smile and impeccable appearance. A prominent role while maintaining his standing among the flawless First Lady. But how many people know that within continent’s traditional right-wing parties. the hallowed halls of the Elysée Palace, she is also Emmanuel Macron’s chief advisor, with a highly political He and his party have no intention of ‘normalising’ role? When he slips up, she scolds him. She gets final say themselves or of becoming more ‘respectable’. Indeed, on his schedule, dictating the tempo. Perfectly at home quite the opposite: their discourse has become more among the jostling for power in his “court,” despite her radical in government. candid airs, she has a clear-cut opinion about the choice of collaborators, both his personal ones, and his Cabinet’s. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amélie Poinssot is a journalist Far from prying eyes, she has a reserved seat at some specialising in Europe at Mediapart. summit meetings. The inner circle has had to learn to work with this singular, but precious, spouse. A drop in popularity? She gets rolled out to accompany the president on outings to take advantage of her surprising popularity.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Ava Djamshidi has been a political reporter specialized in diplomacy and defense for Le Parisien- Aujourd'hui en France since 2010. She is the author of COUPABLE D'AVOIR ÉTÉ VIOLÉE (2013) – the film adaptation was selected for the Cannes Film Festival, in the “Un certain regard” category. Nathalie Schuck has been a political journalist and joint editor- in-chief at Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France since 2008. Among other books, she co-authored ÇA RESTE ENTRE NOUS,HEIN ? DEUX ANS DE CONFIDENCES DE NICOLAS SARKOZY (2004).

11 CURRENT TOPICS Bérengère Viennot Julia Cagé LA LANGUE DE TRUMP LE PRIX DE LA DÉMOCRATIE (Trump-Speak) (The Price of Democracy) Les Arènes, January 2019, 150 pages Fayard, August 2018, 464 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Aufbau). ◊ !Rights sold in:! Harvard University Press (World ◊ A new angle of analysis to understand Trump: English), China (The Commercial Press). Trump, as seen through his own words, in a A ground-breaking work by a young and brilliant personal and incisive essay. ◊ economist, this book argues for a complete ◊ An original and powerful book at the crossroads overhaul of the relationship between democracy of several disciplines: political science, !linguistics, and money, in order to ensure a fairer process for journalism, and translation. all. A short, clever, witty, feminist essay by a translator for ◊ Focussing on the United States, France and Italy, the press, who describes with a lot of humour the this is an impassioned call to arms to rethink the numerous difficulties she faced while starting translating status quo. Donal Trump speeches for the media. ◊ A call to arms to rethink the status quo around the world, by a young and brilliant economist. Bérengère Viennot is a press translator. From 2008 on, she Based on an innovative and original study of public and became used to translating the speeches of Barack Obama, private funding of democracy in 10 countries (including with his keen sense of humour and his powerful eloquence. With the election of Donald Trump, she found France, the United States and Italy) over 50 years, this herself expelled from her comfort zone and compelled to is a ground-breaking text that argues for a complete deal with a brand new primary matter: the vulgar, overhaul of the relationship between politics and money. confused, all too informal, inaccurate, and simplistic language of a president who respects none of the codes of The author demonstrates that in every “democracy”, the political speech. Her story is that of a never-before- wealthiest in society have more sway both at the ballot encountered and distressing brain-buster for the translator, boxes and after the elections, and suggests four practical who finds herself “lost in Trumpslation”. Should she measures in order to redress this fundamental inequality. translate Trump verbatim, at the risk of producing texts that are unreadable? Or smooth out his words, giving the The ultimate aim of this text is to demonstrate that each impression that he expresses himself like an actual head of vote should represent a voice, rather than a Dollar sign, State? Thus the author begins this work, having decided to and that unless change is effected immediately, the future draw upon language in order to understand the enigma of democracy itself is at risk of being controlled by big that is Trump. Along the way, the author speculates about businesses and private interests. the consequences of the mediocre language skills of the leader of the West’s greatest power. She demonstrates ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Julia Cagé is Professor of Economics in how one can slide from the violence of words to political the Department of Economics at Sciences Po Paris. She is also violence and worries about the state of democracy in co-director of the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of America. She expresses concern as well about the Public Policies (LIEPP)'s "Evaluation of Democracy" research dumbing down of the thought and the speech of political group and a Research Affiliate of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR / Economic History, Industrial leaders “contaminated” by Trump. Organization, and Public Economics Programs).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1973, Bérengère Viennot is a translator. Since 2000, she has been translating for various press organs (Courrier International, Project Syndicate, BuzzFeed, Slate) and is a regular contributor to the French website Slate.fr. She also teaches students of translation at the Université de Paris VII.

« Un livre coup de sang et très drôle », Libération

« Une brillante leçon sur la grandeur et la servitude de la traduction », Lire

« Un livre drôle, incisif, énervé » France 5

12 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Raffaele Alberto Ventura Raffaele Alberto Ventura ! LA GUERRA DI TUTTI TEORIA DELLA CLASSE DISAGIATA (The War of All Against All) (Who Do We Think We Are. Minimum Fax, May 2019, 480 pages Millenials And The Aspirational Disease) Minimum Fax, September 2017, 160 pages

◊ With his second book, pop philosopher Raffaele Alberto Ventura takes us on a journey through ◊ Rights sold to: Âyiné (Brazil) the ruins of the affluent society: A cult book that has conquered the network and can ◊ Ventura takes us across rallies inspired by lucidly and mercilessly narrate a drift that concerns all Hollywood movies, he listens to superheroes who of us. talk about philosophy and he speaks with conspiracy theorist fans of Rihanna, princess of the Illuminati. Precarious millennials, scholars of Islamic Law in XIV Century Egypt, Anton Chekhov and William Shakespeare’s ◊ In the midst of this noise, he brings to our characters. What do they all have in common? They all attention the voices of Hobbes and Rousseau, suffer from some sort of “class dyspho- ria”, being too explores the pages of Dick and Flaubert and poor to achieve their aspira- tions and too rich to recalls the history of old wars of religion. renounce to them. To- day, Western Middle Class is Paranoia, terror and crisis of the liberal society. chained to the bourgeois habits and needs created by the spectacular economic growth of the post- war years, but Populism and conspiracy theories, racism and terrorism, can no longer afford them. Their children are now realizing fake news and politically correctness are all symptoms of a that there is literally no room for them. Standing at the cultural crisis. The struggle for social recognition has turned gates of an adult age that seems it will never come, into a war of all against all. A war enclosed in virtual spaces, Millennials are wasting a huge amount of resources in now threatening to spill over and infect the real world. A order to par- ticipate in a winner-takes-all competition for spectre is haunting Western society — the spectre of civil fewer and fewer job opportunities. In this way they are war. It’s continuously evoked and blanked out, it surfaces as providing the aggregate demand Late Capitalism a real possibility in every time there is a terroristic attack, desperately needs in order to sustain its productive system: when there are urban riots, or in the context of the but this non-cooperative game among the heirs of the success of populist movements. Faced with the risk of a Middle Class is also leading to a “Mutual Assured spira- ling into rebellion, governments are unable to con- Declassing”. Switching between economics and literature, ceive no other remedy than the strict control of pu- blic from Veblen to Kafka, Teoria della classe disagiata (literaly space. But what if the problem was found to be nothing “The Theory of Aspirational Class Disease”) formulates a more than our relationship with language and with merciless self-critical analysis of this social class, symbolic violence? deconstructing along the way many myths about School, University, Cultural Industry and Social Web. After No civilization has ever sensationalized wellbeing so much, becoming a cult book in its first self-published edition in 2015, the new version published by Minimum Fax in and no civilization has ever suffered the effect of theresentment that escalates when pro- mises are broken: septem- ber 2017 is having a considerable echo in italian it’s the triumph of sad passions, intercommunity hatreds media and society. and conspiracy theories. After having regulated public ABOUT THE AUTHOR Born in 1983, Raffaele Alberto Ventura consent by producing dreams and needs for decades, the studied philosophy and cultural economy. He now works in Paris cultural industry is now just a machine that produces for a big publisher, in the marketing department. He writes for paranoia. But how can we not feel paranoid when the Linus, IL and Prismo, of which he is editor-at-large. He wrote for political categories on which the social order has been Internazionale, Rivista Studio, Alfabeta2 and Nazione Indiana. constructed have now reverted to just fiction? Democracy Since May 2017 he has been directing a non fiction book series is merely an ideal, Population is just a philosophic for D Publising House. His blog is Eschaton (eschaton.it). construction, Justice is the law of the strongest, Truth is a fragile compromise of different world visions. “An epoch-making essay that should be read by our ruling class.” La Stampa Our society is torn apart between the tyranny of universalism and the claims of minorities: it is im-pellent “Disarming and malancholic. The (gloomy) live tale of a that we recover the value of tolerance. We have to grieve totally negative balance.” la Repubblica and elaborate a strategy that calls for coexistence, since we have to face the threat of an escalation of the extremisms and cultivate a radical refusal of “undisputed facts” that risk to destroy the social body. 13 HISTORY HISTORY

Dermot Turing Éric Branca THREE NATIONS. ONE PROBLEM. THE REAL LES ENTRETIENS OUBLIÉS D’HITLER STORY OF X, Y & Z 1923-1940 How Enigma Was Broken (Forgotten Interviews with Hitler 1923-1940) The History Press, September 2018, 288 p., 30 ill. Perrin, February 2019, 260 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Poland (Rebis), Greece, France ◊ Rights sold in: Czech Republic (Omega), (Nouveau Monde). Netherlands (Polis).

◊ The people of X, Y & Z were eccentric, colourful, ◊ Published here for the first time, the historian, and caught up in world events that they could Eric Branca has selected 16 significant interviews watch but not control. Chased across Europe their from the international press of the time – each mission was to protect the greatest secret of interview is translated, introduced and annotated. World War II. ◊ This unique book also contains an introductory ◊ Based on original research and newly released chapter entitled “Hitler and the foreign press. A documents, this is their story... history of fascination” demonstrating what a hold Spymasters. Spycraft. Escapes. Imprisonment. Betrayal. Hitler had over the West as he rose to power. X, Y & Z describes how secret French, Polish and British From his rise to political prominence in 1923 to the intelligence services came together to unravel the defeat of France in 1940, Hitler manipulated the Enigma machine. democratic press as no other dictator had ever done before. To complete and often to counterbalance his The story of how, working under the very noses of the innumerable speeches, he granted interviews to Germans, Enigma code-breaking continued in Vichy France. journalists, most often chosen deliberately, in order to And how code-breakers from Poland continued their appease Western public opinion regarding the reality of work, watching the USSR’s first steps of the Cold War. his goals and the ruthless way they were being pursued. December, 1932. In the bathroom of a Belgian hotel, a French spymaster is photographing secret documents. The Although hundreds of thousands of printed pages have operating instructions of the German cipher machine been devoted to the Fuhrer for more than 70 years, these Enigma. A few weeks later, a mathematician in a dingy interviews given to the top American, British and French room in Warsaw begins to decipher the coded journalists of the time have never been published, save for communications of the Third Reich, and lay the a handful of quotes. Yet they are crucial, as much for what foundations for the code-breaking operation at Bletchley they dissimulate and for what they reveal. Park. The cooperation between France, Britain and Poland is given the cover-name X, Y and Z. December, 1942. It is ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A historian and journalist, Eric Branca the middle of World War II. The Polish code-breakers are has written several successful books including the very well- in France, on the run from the Gestapo. People who know received L’AMI AMÉRICAIN: WASHINGTON CONTRE DE the Enigma secret are not supposed to be in combat zones GAULLE (1940-1969) published by Perrin in 2017. for fear of capture. So MI6 has a plan−Operation CRICKET−to exfiltrate them. If this goes wrong, if they are caught, they could give away the greatest secret of the war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dermot Turing is the author of Prof, the acclaimed biography of Alan Turing. He spent his career in the legal profession after graduating from Cambridge and Oxford and is a trustee of Bletchley Park. He has extensive knowledge of World War II code-breaking and is a regular presenter at major cryptology events, most recently presenting at the US National Security Agency’s Center for Cryptologic History.

14 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Benoît Rondeau Éric Alary ÊTRE SOLDAT D’HITLER NOUVELLE HISTOIRE DE L’OCCUPATION (Being A Soldier Of Hitler) (A New History Of The Occupation) Perrin, May 2019, 600 pages Perrin, March 2019, 376 pages

◊ There has never been a book like this one before. ◊ By focusing on the everyday life of the occupant, As the subject of countless texts, the German interwoven with that of the French population, Army’s campaigns and battles during WWII are Eric Alary casts new light on the events of the well known. period and, as usual, brings history to life by embodying it in individual biographies ◊ In a limpid writing style, the author examines the many and various situations experienced in all The Occupation of France as lived daily on the German latitudes, from generals to Messerschmitt pilots, side, an unprecedented overview certain to become a from administrators in Paris to Panzer tank definitive reference. crewmembers.

◊ The daily life of German soldiers from 1939 to June 1940. In the course of a few days, millions of French 1945. people find themselves under the German yoke. In two- thirds of the country, towns and villages are occupied, What remains to be studied is how the war was actually submerged by the forces and symbols of nazism. The rest experienced by German soldiers, whichever corps they of France remains “free”, supposedly. The occupants, belonged to: what was their daily life, what were the however, are the masters of the country: they sleep and conditions on the front lines or further back? Did they eat in the homes of the occupied and move freely around have an advantage over their adversaries? France.

The question of dishonorable submission to the nazi In this new history of the occupation, Eric Alary focuses on regime is the central one: did being a wehrmacht or waffen the neglected aspect of the daily life of the Germans. How ss soldier at hitler’s service mean being a solider like any did they plan, conceive and experience the French other? This book focuses in particular on the army’s degree occupation? What were the ideological, historical, cultural of Nazification, the question of relations with civilian and economic projections the Germans cast on France, populations, and, consequently, on the crimes of the Third following the defeat of 1918? How did the troops of the Reich. Third Reich arrive and settle in France? How did the Germans conceive of the occupation in 1940, and then ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Benoît Rondeau, a specialist in the over the years? How was this political and military Wehrmacht, has had several books published, including occupation exercised in its police, judicial, economic and AFRIKAKORPS. L’ARMÉE DE ROMMEL; INVASION. LE cultural dimensions? DÉBARQUEMENT VÉCU PAR LES ALLEMANDS, both at Editions Tallandier, and, at Perrin, ROMMEL. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ÉRIC ALARY has a doctorate from the Institute of Political Studies of Paris and teaches. He was assistant to René Rémond of the Académie française, taught at Sciences- Po-Paris from 1996 to 2010 and was an associate researcher at the Sciences-Po Center of History from 1996 to 2015. The books he has published with Perrin, all of them well-received, include LA LIGNE DE DÉMARCATION (The Demarcation line), LES FRANÇAIS AU QUOTIDIEN (The French in everyday life), L’EXODE (The Exodus), LA GRANDE GUERRE DES CIVILS (The Civilians’ Great War), and L’HISTOIRE DES PAYSANS FRANÇAIS (The History of French Peasants).

15 HISTORY Jean-Charles Foucrier Christopher Hale LA GUERRE DES SCIENTIFIQUES DECEPTION (The Scientists’ War) (How the Nazis Deceived the Last Jews of Europe) Perrin, February 2019, 450 pages The History Press, September 2019, 320 pages

◊ A hugely important book featuring ◊ Thanks to the author’s clear and learned groundbreaking research. presentation, we discover the secrets of radar, penicillin, the atomic bomb, Enigma decoding and ◊ Author has undertaken research across Europe many other decisive advances we owe to and America. important personalities, most of them unjustly ◊ Christopher Hale is the author of the bestselling forgotten. Himmler’s Crusade. A global explanatory approach, based on the scientific The first book to tell the complete story of Adolf and technological innovations of the Second World War. Eichmann’s plan to deceive the last Jews of Europe While most of these are already famous, their origins remain largely unknown. ‘I suppose you know who I am? I was in charge of the actions in Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia. I am This book is an unprecedented in-depth exploration of prepared to sell you one million Jews: Goods for blood ... one of the hidden facets of the Second World War: that Blood for goods.’ These were the chilling words uttered by of the academics, researchers and teachers who were one of the most notorious Nazi bureaucrats, SS Colonel involved, often clandestinely, in the cataclysm. Together Adolf Eichmann, to a young Jewish businessman called Joel they formed a genuine army of civilians lurking in the Brand in the spring of 1944. Brand embarked on a shadows, weighing decisively on the outcome of the desperate mission to persuade the Allies to barter with conflict. Eichmann – and failed. 400,000 Hungarian Jews were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau packed in cattle trains, gassed, and ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jean-Charles Foucrier holds a doctorate then incinerated. For decades after 1945, many blamed the in contemporary history from Paris-Sorbonne university. a Allies for callously abandoning a million Hungarian Jews to specialist of the Second World War, he is a reservist in the their fate. In Deception, Christopher Hale presents a new French air Force in charge of historical studies at CErPa at the Ecole Militaire de Paris. He has also written LA STRATÉGIE DE account of the ‘Brand Mission’ based on evidence in the LA DESTRUCTION. BOMBARDEMENT ALLIÉS EN FRANCE, national archives of Germany, Hungary, Britain and the 1944. United States. Hale reveals that Eichmann’s offer formed one part of a monstrous deception designed to outwit the leaders of the last surviving Jewish community in Europe. The deception was more complex and – from the German point of view – more successful than any equivalent operation mounted by the British secret service such as ‘Operation Mincemeat’.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Christopher Hale is the author of Himmler’s Crusade (Bantam, 2003), Hitler’s Foreign Executioners (THP, 2011) and Massacre in Malaya (THP, 2013). He has made numerous documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4 and many other broadcasters. Himmler’s Crusade won the prestigious Italian Premio Gambrinus 'Giuseppe Mazzotti' prize. Hitler’s Foreign Executioners was longlisted for the History Today/Longman’s History Book of the Year in 2011 and was a bestseller in Poland. He lives in Berlin.

16 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue (Dir.) Jean-Christian Petitfils (Dir.) Sylvain Gougenheim LES ÉNIGMES DE L’HISTOIRE DU MONDE LES EMPIRES MÉDIÉVAUX (The Enigmas Of World History) (Medieval Empires) Perrin, May 2019, 416 pages Perrin, April 2019, 300 pages

◊ A global Middle Ages appears, simultaneously An unparalleled collection that constitutes a ◊ Carolingian, Byzantine, Khmer, Serbian, Aztec, history of the world in its own right. Mongol, Abbasid, Ottoman, Bulgarian, Venetian, ◊ This book follows Enigmas of French History (over Chinese, Japanese, Norman, German, Plantagenet 25,000 copies sold, one of the best-selling French and Malay. history books of 2018). ◊ Each facet is described by a renowned specialist. Was Atlantis a land tossed to the middle of the Aegean A round-the-world tour of 16 medieval empires sea by a tsunami, or a Platonic metaphor? Many people believe that the shroud of Turin was once wrapped conducted by a team of eminent experts. around Christ’s body, while others are convinced it’s a hoax. Who sculpted and erected those monumental As a political, diplomatic, military and cultural construction figures on an improbable island in the South Pacific? Did at the crossroads of space and time, “empire” is a the Vikings sail across the Atlantic and settle on the particularly relevant concept to describe and understand American coast or not? The sudden disappearance of the the world of the Middle Ages. An empire is an ensemble Mayan civilization and its undecipherable writing poses that cannot be integrated into any other; the emperor is questions that remain unanswerable at this time. Jack the the one who proclaims he has no human power above Ripper has been identified repeatedly, but which him, and proves it. Between the fifth and fifteenth identification is true? And who was that mysterious young centuries, such constructions rose and fell almost person who accompanied Mao towards the end of his life, everywhere on the planet. Some were ephemeral, others interpreting his final burbles? of long duration. They clashed or were unaware of each other, left impressive traces or disappeared almost entirely. People have been attempting – sometimes for centuries – During the same period, institutions, religions, heroes, wars to solve these enigmas. They may annoy us at times, but and myths animated societies that illuminate each other like family secrets they preserve their appealing mystery. when we view them side by side, as they are presented in some of them have affected the fate of the world. this ambitious and unparalleled collective work that Akhenaton’s monotheism, Alexander’s tomb, shakespeare’s combines clear purpose with flawless research. identity, the disappearance of Ambassador Benjamin Bathurst, Tsar Alexander’s second life, the Kennedy ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A professor of medieval history at the École normale supérieure in Lyon and a specialist on the assassination, the attempted assassination of John-Paul II, Teutonic Knights, Sylvain Gouguenheim is also the author of the death of Lady Di... so many episodes that continue to essays such as LE MOYEN ÂGE EN QUESTIONS. He has fascinate and inspire. assembled a group of leading experts to present these 16 great medieval empires. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jean-Christian Petitfils, whose writings about the Ancien Régime are authoritative, has already edited a collective volume about the reign of Louis XIV for Perrin, as well as the Enigmas of French History, which came out in 2018.

17 HISTORY Robin Laurance Victor Battaggion & Thierry Sarmant COCONUT HISTOIRE MONDIALE DES COURS (How the Shy Fruit Shaped our World) (A Global history of Courts from Antiquity to Today) The History Press, July 2019, 224 pages Perrin, January 2019, 480 pages

◊ Uncovering the history of the coconut, with A ground-breaking collective work that tells the story of stories of exploration and wartime exploits, the most prestigious courts around the world, from artistic expression, religious piety, royal ancient Egypt to the 21st century, bringing them to life christenings, shipwrecks, survival, scientific discovery and the subversive printing of bank and revealing their history, rites and customs. notes A court can be defined as a meeting place between daily ◊ Today, coconut products line the shelves of the life and history, the individual and politics, public space and world’s supermarkets, health food shops and private space, the state and the church. An unchangeable retailers of beauty products, dominates the new conservatory of age-old traditions, it is nonetheless in wave of cook books, and has become the trendy constant evolution – and sometimes in constant motion, alternative to cow’s milk in coffee shops according to the adage “wherever the king is, the court is.” ◊ Current uses include gold mining, nuclear fusion A manifestation of power, its very existence enhances the research, breathing apparatus, drug smuggling, air monarchy’s prestige. It must therefore include many and water purification and treating overdoses, courtiers, to illustrate the loyalty of the elite, and be while coconut charcoal saves lives in emergency dazzling, to demonstrate to subjects and foreigners alike rooms every day the supremacy and wealth of the sovereign whose seat it Charting the many and varied ways the coconut has is. And finally, for centuries, it was the heart of intellectual, artistic and cultural life. Bernini, for example, designed shaped and continues to shape our world. Such buildings for the popes, Moliere entertained Louis XIV and disparate characters as an English earl, an American Mozart was employed by the Prince-Archbishop of president, Imelda Marcus, a celebrated German nudist, Salzburg – and his commissions boosted the luxury Captain Bligh of the Bounty, and a billion Hindus industry. feature in this fascinating history of the coconut. From the courts of ancient Egypt to those of The coconut has long been the unseen player in the contemporary Europe, by way of forgotten or little-known endeavors of industrialists and bomb makers, physicians courts in japan, Persia, Byzantium, Burgundy and Austria, and silversmiths, smugglers and snake charmers. The this book fills a void thanks to the contributions – at once millions of gas masks produced in readiness for World erudite and lively – written by leading specialists brought War II had filters packed with coconut charcoal; 16th- together by victor Battaggion and Thierry sarmant. century European craftsmen gilded coconuts with silver and gold; early seafarers were sustained its fresh water and ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Victor Battaggion is deputy nutritious flesh, using the husk to make the rope for the managing editor of the magazine Historia. Thierry Sarmant, an ships’ rigging and more of it to arrest the inevitable leaks in archivist-paleographer with a doctorate from the university of the ships’ hulls. Today, the world and his visitors wipe their Paris I, is Head Curator of Heritage and Director of Collections at the mobilier national. A historian of the Ancien Régime, he has feet on coir matting and coconut-based products line the published notably RÉGNER ET GOUVERNER: LOUIS XIV ET shelves of supermarkets and health food shops. This is the SES MINISTRES (2010); LOUIS XIV HOMME ET ROI (2012); remarkable history of the most widely used plant nature and 1715: LA FRANCE ET LE MONDE (2014). has conceived. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robin Laurance has been writing as a freelance journalist for 35 years, contributing articles to The Times, The Guardian and The Sunday Times among other magazines. During 18 months of research he has become a minor expert on the coconut! He has previously written Portrait of Islam and Just what I always wanted (Quercus), a light-hearted look at present-giving through 365 unusual birthday exchanges during the past 300 years.

18 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue

BIOGRAPHIES

Arnaud Maillard Alexandre Sargos MERCI, KARL ! TOLKIEN À VINGT ANS (Thank you Karl!) (Tolkien At 20 Calmann Levy, 2007, The Youth Of The Father Of The Modern Fantasy) Au diable vauvert, January 2019, 128 pages

◊ Rights sold in: China (Chasse Litte), ◊ Rights sold in: Hungary (Europa), Poland (Znak). ◊ Previously sold in: Taiwan (Sun Color Culture). ◊ A biopic on Tolkien’s childhood with Lily Collins, ◊ For the first time, a designer takes us behind the Nicholas Hoult, Craig Roberts is scheduled in scenes of a big house: under glitter, couture is 2019. revealed. A biography of the father of the modern fantasy until he Arnaud Maillard was barely twenty when he landed his first was 20years old. internship with Karl Lagerfeld, one of the geniuses of international fashion. The young stylist worked fifteen years Death was invited early in the life of John Ronald Reuel in the shadow of Karl, and then became director of the Tolkien, born in 1892 in South Africa. That of his parents, studio of the Lagerfeld Gallery. of friends, that of the rural forest society, swept away by the industrial revolution, those of modern wars, of which In the shelter of podiums, excellence is sovereign. he was a miracle. Death accompanies his childhood, his Ambitions are woven, ideas are pricked, reputations are youth, an unexpected muse that will push him to create cut and small hands are bent on small points. The stylist another world in which the Beatnik generation engulfed, tells us all about Karl Lagerfeld, a demanding and fascinating then millions of readers. star. It was around the age of 20, during the First World War, Ingrid Méchoulam that his future mythology was born, with the creation of his SOUS LE SOLEIL DE SAGAN first Elvish languages, his first legends, published after his (Under the sun with Sagan) death by his son Christopher: The Book of Lost stories. Michal Lafon, March 2019, 224 pages The first stone of a work that will conquer the world, the origin of the Lord of the Rings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alexandre Sargos is a photographer and journalist. Co-writer of YAKUZA: ENQUÊTE AU CŒUR DE LA MAFIA JAPONAISE (Flammarion 2005), co-filmaker of Le XV des cités, documentary (Canal+ 2007). And many photo documentary published and awarded in France and abroad.

A first ever account by the woman who shared Françoise Sagan’s last years.

Ingrid Méchoulam, married at 18 to a Greek billionaire 48 years her senior, is the incarnation of the Painted Lady described by Sagan in one of her novels. For the last 15 years of the cult author’s life, she provided her with a home - often shared with literary critic Bernard Frank in a Truffaut-esque ménage à trois - a constant support and a string of glamorous or eccentric voyages.

A first and invaluable portrait of Sagan, her passion for life and refusal of any form of pathos, the real Sagan. Unforgettable.

19 BIOGRAPHIES Jean-Paul Bled Marie-Hélène Baylac MARLÈNE DIETRICH AGATHA CHRISTIE (Marlene Dietrich) (A Mysterious life) Perrin, April 2019, 384 pages Perrin, April 2019

◊ The author based this biography on the The adventurous and mysterious life of the “Queen of substantial Marlene Dietrich archives deposited in Crime Berlin in 1993. The tumultuous and passionate life story of a legendary As often happens with writers, the Queen of Crime’s life actress. (1890-1976) was eclipsed by her books. yet her personal story was just as exciting. Nearly 30 years after her death, the Dietrich myth has not aged a day. Josef von Sternberg, with whom she made Little Agatha wrote her first detective novel after making a seven classic films from The Blue Angel to The devil is a bet with her sister, then went on to become the most woman, began to forge it in the early 1930s. A master of widely read English-language writer in her lifetime. As the lighting, he stylized her beauty and created her femme young Mrs Miller, imaginative and romantic, she had only fatale character, sensual and sophisticated. Following the one aspiration, to live happily ever after with Prince lead of her Pygmalion, she applied her sense of Charming. The failure of her marriage to a dashing aviator perfectionism to enhancing her image. Making the most of affected her so deeply that in 1926 she disappeared for ten her assets – face, eyes, body, voice – she turned herself days under a false name, while all of England was on the into an icon, a timeless Venus defying the onslaughts of lookout for her. The wound would never fully heal, but her age. indomitable will kept her moving forward. Her remarriage to an archaeologist 14 years her junior shaped her new life. Marlene Dietrich embodied the liberated woman as much She spent it going from excavations in Iraq and syria to her in her style as in her way of life. A performer with houses in london and her native devon, and of course androgynous tendencies, she had a taste for masculine writing a series of best-sellers. She became a genuine clothes, such as the trousers she wears in Morocco and in British institution, at the head of the world’s first Blonde Venus. She exercised that same freedom in her multimedia empire. She generated a colossal fortune, most relationships to both the men – including Jean Gabin – and of which was lost to her, snatched away by the tax man or the women she encountered in her life. funneled into financial schemes that benefited those close to her more than herself. An eternal optimist, devoting more and more time to the theater – her true passion – Blonde Venus also represents a strong political symbol. and to a love of food that left her unattractively stout, she Incarnation of the spirit of resistance to nazism, Marlene remained “the boss” in all circumstances. had a troubled relationship with Germany, which took a long time to forgive her for wearing the American uniform during the war. Yet her attachment to Berlin remained Fascinated early on by the world of hercule Poirot and intact. It was the place where she was born, spent her Miss Marple, Marie-hélène Baylac has realized a long- youth, started her career, found success and her first loves. cherished project: recounting the life, shrouded in mystery, She breathed the air of the great Berlin of the 1920s and of the Queen of Crime, and deciphering the secrets personified its spirit and nostalgia. Wasn’t one of the songs behind the creation of an exceptional body of work, the from her repertoire entitled I still have a suitcase in Berlin? matrix of all contemporary whodunit literature. ABOUT THE AUTHOR A graduate of the École normale ABOUT THE AUTHOR A renowned specialist on Germany and supérieure with a degree in history, MARIE- HELENE BAYLAC Austria-Hungary, professor emeritus at the university of Paris IV- has written mainly about the period of the revolution and the Sorbonne, Jean-Paul Bled has published numerous books, Empire. She has also published a biography of Queen Hortense including François-Joseph (Franz Joseph) Marie-Thérèse d’autriche at Perrin, which received an award from the Fondation Napoléon. (Maria Theresa of austria) (both at Fayard), Bismarck and les Her most recent works reflect her interest in a transversal Hommes d’Hitler (Hitler’s Men) (both at Perrin). approach to history: Ces objets qui ont fait l’histoire (These Objects that made History) and Histoire des animaux célèbres (a History of Famous animals), which won the Prix Fernand Méry (both at Perrin).

20 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Pierre Vasarely & Philippe Dana France Football VASARELY, UNE SAGA DANS LE SIÈCLE MBAPPÉ TOUT GAGNER (Vasarely, a Saga in the Century) (Win Everything Mbappé Biography) Calmann Levy, January 2019, 306 pages Solar, May 2019, 336 pages

An incredible artistic, family and legal saga. ◊ Rights sold in : Netharlands, Arabic (Qatar). ◊ Offer from: Estonia. A leading artist of his time, Victor Vasarely left behind a rich body of work, with over ten thousand paintings. ◊ With an introduction written by Mbappé himself! Fascinated by the Bauhaus artistic movement born in ◊ Illustrated with rare photographs, exclusive Germany in the 1920s, and a former student of Budapest’s interviews by the France Football journalists Mühely, he went on to become a graphic artist with advertising agencies, such as Havas, and created his own ◊ The first and only reference biography on the style, op art or optical art, with the desire to promote a youngest world’s best football player. social form of art, accessible to all. He shot to stardom in the 60s and 70s, but gradually faded from memory ◊ In the footsteps of Ibrahimovic or Totti’s following his death in 1997. Yet his work is essential – his successful biographies! influence can be felt in architecture, fashion, music - David This book tells the explosion of this raw talent and how Bowie used one of his paintings for the cover of his album, Space Oddity -, literature – Jacques Prévert dedicated his he provided himself with the means to succeed, without poem “Imaginoires” to him – and even automobiles, with settling any limits. Renault’s logo. At the height of his fame, he opened two museums in Hungary and a foundation in France. He gifted Kylian Mbappé is only 19 years old and already a World his work to them without imagining the inheritance battles Cup champion and twice a France cup champion. He plays this would open the door to after his death. at PSG with international celebrities such as Neymar, Cavani or Thiago Silva to whom he is, in comparison, just Pierre, his only grandson, tells his grandfather’s story for the as good. He is a real phenomenon. first time - his incredible journey through life, his art, his loves, and the family and legal saga surrounding his His rise has been so dazzling that hardly any media inheritance. managed to get close to him. Except for France Football: this magazine has followed him since his teenage years and ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Philippe Dana is a journalist, awarded him in late 2018 the Kopa Trophy, as best producer and television and radio presenter. He has published performing player under the age of 21. several books, including Ginette Kolinka with Editions Kero in 2016. Pierre Vasarely, son of the artist Yvaral and Geneviève ABOUT THE AUTHOR France Football is the ultimate weekly Dupin, is Victor Vasarely’s sole heir, and president of the Vasarely magazine of football. It also awards each year the famous Ballon Foundation. d’Or.

21 BIOGRAPHIES Robert Murphy Marek Halter PAUL RICARD ! JE RÊVAIS DE CHANGER LE MONDE (The Story of Provence's Drinks King) (I Dreamed Of Changing The World) Albin Michel, May 2019, 224 pages XO Éditions, January 2019, 572 pages

◊ The American edition of this biography is ◊ All told in a moving and original way as he published by Weldon Owen. addresses Clara, his wife and partner in battle for Paul Ricard built one of the biggest spirits groups in the over forty years. She sadly passed away last year. world from his native Provence: this book is the story of ◊ Marek Halter invites us to take a look, through his his life and work — illustrated by family photos personal journey, at almost a century of History. published here for the first time. What an incredible life! For the first time, Marek Halter traces back his remarkable destiny. A timeless adventure story about commercial talent, adaptability and invention, this biography shows how Paul Once upon a time… there was a young Jewish boy who Ricard started from nothing to overcome the historical, was born in Warsaw a few years before the start of the political and economic ordeals of his times, to create a Second World War. Driven out to far away Soviet prosperous firm that has stood the test of time and whose Republics by Nazism, he survived and arrived in Paris with values he still maintains. his parents in early 1950. Destined to become a painter, but led by fate and random encounters, Marek Halter will ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robert Murphy is an American writer instead become the popular writer known worldwide and and journalist who lives in Paris. His articles have been published the relentless Peace activist who always kept hope alive in many international publications, including Details, Architectural Digest, the Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, The International and never gave up. Herald Tribune, WWD and Harper’s Bazaar. With Albin Michel, he authored Les paradis secrets de Pierre Bergé et Yves Saint From his childhood to today, as a real story-teller relying Laurent and Une Vie Saint Laurent. on an absolute faith in the power of the Word and of the dialogue, Marek Halter revisits each step of his unique destiny where we will meet with Stalin, Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Nasser, Sadat, Yasser Arafat, Peres, Peron, Che Guevara, Putin, John Paul II, Pope Francis… not to forget the French presidents with whom he always maintained privileged relations.

His never ending fight for peace in the Middle East or for freedom of speech wherever combat needs to be carried out, but also his friendships, his loves, his inspiring sharing of Jewish culture…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR The Book of Abraham, The Kabbalist of Prague, The Cannan trilogy (Sarah, Tsippora, Lilah), Mary of Nazareth, The Queen of Sheba, The Wind of the Khazars, The Women from Islam (Khadija, Fatima, Aïcha)… Marek Halter works have been translated into more than 20 languages and has sold millions of copies around the World.

22 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue CULTURAL ESSAYS

Denis Grozdanovitch Serge Sanchez DANDYS ET EXCENTRIQUES LE HOMARD DE FLAUBERT (Dandies And Eccentrics) (Flaubert’s Lobster) Grasset, March 2019, 384 pages Grasset, April 2019, 260 pages

◊ This volume is full of anecdotes and offers an ◊ Swans, cats, stags, hydras, phoenixes and many opportunity to examine the phenomena of other animals, whether fictional or real, are eccentricity and dandyism as well as discover, in omnipresent in books. passing, that the two attitudes are rarely ◊ An inexhaustible source of poetry and reverie, synonymous. meditation, fantasy, and sometimes terror, they In this book, Denis Grozdanovitch paints the portraits of occupy a unique place in the imaginations of several dandies and eccentrics, either famous or who he writers. Serge Sanchez takes us on a literary stroll through this erudite and arresting menagerie. has personally encountered throughout his life. From the Jardin des Plantes to the Menagerie of What is a dandy? Is the dandy always an eccentric, and is Versailles, Montaigne’s fly to Balzac’s cat, Serge he conscious of his difference? Can a woman be a dandy? Sanchez deploys all his skills as storyteller to detail the Do the lives of dandies always end tragically? These are astonishing collection of animals that populates some of among the many questions this book – filled with our finest literature. miscellany, philosophy, thoughts and ideas about difference –answers with elegance, scholarship and countless What do cats, lobsters, camels and butterflies have in anecdotes about the dizzying heights of singularity. common? Each of them has inspired some of our greatest writers. Every writer has their own favourite animal, but In this gallery of whimsical celebrities, we cross paths with what is less well-known is how certain animals have had a certain “classic” dandies: Brummel, Oscar Wilde, central influence on the works of certain authors. Nabokov Huysmans, and Baudelaire. We also meet Japanese and would certainly never have written Lolita if he hadn’t also Chinese eccentrics (fans of Taoism and Zen) as well as been a passionate butterfly collector, and this offers an those of the Western variety, like the philosopher essential key to understanding his book. Wittgenstein, Verlaine, Rimbaud, T.E. Lawrence, Corto Maltese, Don Quixote, Casanova, Borges, Andy Warhol, What to think of the flour mite, too small to be measured Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Allan Bloom, Cyrano but too big to go unnoticed, which inspired one of Pascal’s de Bergerac, and many more. Pensées? And what of Baudelaire’s fascination with cats, De Quincey’s obsession with crocodiles, and the ‘funny’ And what about women? Because feminine dandyism was creatures of Rabelais? very much alive and well! From Madame du Châtelet to George Sand by way of Colette, Karen Blixen, Virginia ABOUT THE AUTHOR A journalist, writer and contributor to Woolf, Vita Sackville West, Rachel Bespaloff, Gabrielle Roy, Magazine Littéraire, Serge Sanchez is the author of LA LAMPE DE and Louise Brooks. PROUST ET AUTRES OBJETS DE LA LITTÉRATURE (2013) as well as FRANÇOIS AUGIÉRAS, LE DERNIER PRIMITIF (2006, ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Denis Grozdanovitch is a former tennis, Ardua de la Ville de Bordeaux literary prize) and BRASSAÏ, LE squash and courte-paume champion who found a new vocation PROMENEUR DE NUIT (2010), published by Grasset. in philosophy, chess and literature. His works – from the PETIT TRAITÉ DE DÉSINVOLTURE to GÉNIE DE LA BÊTISE, and from L’EXACTITUDE DES SONGES to LA PUISSANCE DISCRÈTE DU HASARD – are all handbooks filled with much wisdom and even more humour.

23 CULTURAL ESSAYS

Pierre Klossoswki Michel Crépu SUR PROUST BECKETT, 29 JUILLET 82, 11H30 (On Proust) (Beckett, July, 29, 82, 11:30) Serge Safran, February 2019, 144 pages Arléa, March 2019, 100 pages

◊ Original reflection on In Search of Lost Time. After thirty years of voluntary removal, Michel Crépu ◊ A Proustian vision of the novel. returns to the scene of a literary passion for the creator of En attendant Godot. Drawer and painter, translator and novelist, older brother of Balthus and friend of Rilke, Andre Gide, But is it possible to talk about Beckett ? Limit work, which Bataille, Breton, and Foucault, Pierre Klossowski (1905- immediately transforms the daring into talkative 2001) is deeply associated with the literary movements commentators. Michel Crépu nevertheless takes up the of the last century. challenge. He reads again the works according to a memory that coincides with his attraction of the past for In 1971, Michel Butor invited him to participate in a the monastic life, in the distant time of the 80s. Literature television program on “Proust and the Senses.” He seized and the spiritual: here begins a common history, not the opportunity to reread In Search of Lost Time and to completed. provide his own interpretation of it. This is how Klossowski designed an unparalleled literary masterpiece, offering a Young man, he wanted to shake the hand of the man who spiritual experience bordering on extasy. had squeezed Joyce's hand. A memorable appointment will give him this chance. Beckett seems far away today from ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Pierre Klossowski was a French the ambient houellebecquerie. His loneliness has never author and artist whose work explores sadomasochistic imagery been so great. This is the time to never go back to see. resembling the surrealist eroticism of Hans Bellemer. He was This is what Michel Crépu does in this book of hours of born in 1905 in Paris, to two artists: Erich and Baladine reading and intimacy. Klossowski. In 1923, Klossowski became the secretary of French author André Gide as he was working on LES FAUX- ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michel Crépu is a French writer and MONNAYEURS. Gide presented the young painter to several literary critic as well as the editor-in-chief of La Nouvelle Revue personalities of the era, both historical and literary, including française since 2015. He is the author of fifteen books among Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, and Michel Foucault, who went which: LE TOMBEAU DE BOSSUET, Grasset, 1997 – Prix on to support and befriend the writer/artist. Klossowski is most Femina essai et grand prix de la critique de l'Académie française renowned for his novel ROBERTE CE SOIR. He died in 2001 at 1997 ; LE SOUVENIR DU MONDE, Grasset, 2011 – Prix des the age of 96. Luc Lagarde was born in 1957. In 1986, he co- Deux Magots 2012 ; VISION DE JACKIE KENNEDY AU JARDIN directed the film François Augiéras FRAGMENTS D’UNE GALLIERA, Gallimard, 2017 ; UN EMPÊCHEMENT, Gallimard, TRAJECTOIRE. A librarian, he published PROUST À L’ORÉE DU 2018. CINÉMA in 2016. He spent time with Pierre Klossowski between 1998 and 2000.

24 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Guillaume Martin Nathan Wachtel SOCRATE À VÉLO PARADIS DU NOUVEAU MONDE (Socrate on a Bike (New World Paradise) A Philosopher’s Tour De France) Fayard, April 2019, 350 pages Grasset, February 2019, 240 pages

◊ Nathan Wachtel explores the cultural turmoil ◊ A philosophical fable in the tradition of Sophie’s created by relations between Western and native World and Le Miracle Spinoza. populations, and the mark it would leave on indigenous identities up to the present time. ◊ Invites various renowned philosophers to participate in the Tour de France and The discovery of a previously unsuspected world in the demonstrates that high-level physical exertion is late 15th century gave rise to countless hypotheses and no enemy to intellectual activity. fantasies in the West, fueling theories of earthly ◊ Aburlesque philosophical fantasy, both paradise. recreational and humorous, which serves to illustrate one of Bergson’s maxims: ‘One needs to Whether the search for Eden in the heart of South think like a man of action and act like a man of America or the theory of the Jewish ancestry of Native thought.’ American tribes, such claims were based on remarkably well-documented studies, conducted with almost scientific Guillaume Martin blends essay and fiction, philosophy rigor.At the same time, so-called “messianic” movements and spirituality, as he appeals to our imagination in developed at intervals among Native American populations introducing us to the world of cycling while giving us over long periods of time. Beliefs such as migration food for thought. towards the Land without Evil, persistent expectations of the return of the Inca, or frenzied visions of the People often say: ‘Sportsmen are not expected to think, resurrection of the dead emerged across Native American rather to act.’ Such stereotypes are tenacious, but this societies and cultures, from the Brazilian lowlands to the philosophical foray succeeds in reconciling mind and body North American Rocky Mountains, and characterized to and showing that the head and the legs are part of a some degree native resistance. Meanwhile, native continuum. movements borrowed religious forces from the invaders, to resist them more effectively, which gradually dissolved, During the preparations for the Tour, each country is over the centuries, into a vast pan-indigenous identity. represented by its own philosopher, so Sartre flies the French flag while Plato personifies Greece. We watch ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nathan Wachtel holds the chair Nietzsche in determined training as he listens to a “History and Anthropology of Meso and South American programme on philosophy, while other illustrious Societies” at the Collège de France and is the author of philosophers climb the mountain stages alongside the great numerous books, including La Vision des vaincus. LES INDIENS DU PÉROU DEVANT LA CONQUÊTE ESPAGNOLE (1530- champions and Heidegger veers off into a roadside ditch. 1570) (Gallimard, 1971) and LABYRINTHES MARRANES (Seuil, 2001). And these cycling philosophers embark on the actual competition. They have to get through 21 steps, which read like lessons in life and deploy metaphors applied to the world of sports. The only form of doping allowed is intelligence. But will it be enough to win the much-prized yellow jersey?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A professional cyclist and holder of a Master’s in philosophy, Guillaume Martin came 21st in the 2018 Tour de France. He writes a column for Le Monde newspaper and has written a play, Platon et Platoche, which is currently being performed in Paris. SOCRATE À VÉLO is his first book.

25 CULTURAL ESSAYS Pierre Bayard Antony Cummins LA VÉRITÉ SUR DIX PETITS NÈGRES OLD JAPAN ! (The Truth About “And Then There Were None”) (Secrets from the Shores of the Samurai) Minuit, January 2019, 176 pages The History Press, August 2018, 240 p. 50 ill.

◊ Under option in: Russia. ◊ Rights sold in: Czech Republic (Euromedia). ◊ The fourth volume of a serie which include QUI A ◊ All new translations made by the author and his TUÉ ROGER ACKROYD ?(Who has killed Roger team of experts Ackroyd ?), ENQUÊTE SUR HAMLET (Investigation on Hamlet) and L’AFFAIRE DU ◊ Snippets of information to appeal to YouTube CHIEN DES BASKERVILLE (The case of the culture, and to make a great gift book for Hound of the Baskervilles). Bayard’s « literary ◊ Bestselling author, with over 15,000 copies sold of studies on crime fiction » aim at solving criminal books on the subject of the Samurai and Old Japan investigations as much as they offer a literary reflexion. ◊ Author runs a YouTube channel with over 12,000 subscribers ◊ The secrets of detective-novel writing cleverly revealed by examining masterpieces of the genre Discover the ancient ways of the Samurai and from a clever new perspective. experience the stunning myth of Old Japan ◊ A brilliantly delightful investigation that challenges the solutions to the most famous fictional crimes Japan has often been thought of as a closed country, but with precision and flair. before the country was closed in 1635 many travellers from the West were able to experience its unique

◊ Bayard has managed once again to make the traditions and culture. Their accounts speak of legends of division between literary genres porous, offering powerful dragons and devils, tales of the revered emperor readers a book on the cusp between a police procedural, a literary essay and a parody. and the protocol surrounding him, following complex etiquette in everything from tea ceremonies to footwear, No reader can seriously believe the highly unlikely and bloodthirsty warlords who exacted cruel and unusual resolution suggested at the end of the famous crime punishments for the smallest of crimes. novel And then they were none by Agatha Christie. Antony Cummins uses these captivating eyewitness By giving voice to the actual murderer, this book explains accounts to reveal fascinating facts and myths from the what actually happened and why Agatha Christie got it mysterious Land of the Rising Sun. wrong. In an investigation unfolded in three parts, William Blone exposes the case and all its ins and outs as Christie ABOUT THE AUTHOR Antony Cummins is the Official Tourism explained it herself. After the scene is thus set, the author Ambassador for Wakayama and the author of many books including Iga and Koka Ninja Skills, The Illustrated Guide to Viking confronts this crime story to other such as The Mystery of Martial Arts and Samurai War Stories (all The History Press). He the Yellow Room and ABC against Poirot and reveals has appeared in documentaries such as Ninja Shadow Warriors similitudes that could have helped the detectives. Blore and Samurai Warrior Queens. He lives in the UK and often finally reveals how he has created the perfect crime and travels to Japan to research Japanese warrior culture. prove the famous writer wrong.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pierre Bayard is a professor at University Paris 8 and a psychanalist. He is the author of numerous essays, such as COMMENT PARLER DES LIVRES QUE L’ON N’A PAS LUS ? (How do we speak of books we haven’t read ?) The book has been translated into 27 languages and was a huge success in France (80,000 copies sold in France alone). His previous title, L’ÉNIGME TOLSTOIEVSKI (The Tolstoievsky Enigma, 2017) was sold in Russia (Text).

26 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue NATURE

Baptiste Morizot Marc Jeanson & Charlotte Fauve SUR LA PISTE ANIMALE LE BOTANISTE (On The Animal Trail) (The Botanist) Actes Sud, April 2018, 208 pages Grasset, April 2018, 260 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Reclam); Italy ◊ A fine homage to the natural world and a plea for (Nottetempo); Spain (Errata Naturae) us to reconnect with our living planet, which ◊ We are invited to become detectives of nature remains splendid despite the damage inflicted on and to follow the trail of extraordinary, often it. mythical creatures – bears, wolves, and snow ◊ Spanning the first stirrings of our awareness of the panthers. plant world to the present day. ◊ By deciphering and interpreting paw prints and ◊ A tale of adventures, voyages and shifting signs, we gradually discover not only their animal landscapes presented against a backdrop of perpetrator but also the animal’s motives. science, heritage and history. ◊ The work brings new life to the wild and enriches ◊ Combining portraits, stories, forgotten episodes our own inner worlds. and shifts in scientific thinking, it is an From the forests of Yellowstone to the peaks of unclassifiable and delightful book. Kirghizstan and Haut-Var steppes or an apartment In an age when nature is being abused and forests are balcony, a different approach to nature: as he calls it, burning, this book offers a fascinating tour of the world’s “philosophical tracking”. largest herbarium and a sensible exploration of the bonds between plants and human beings. We get to experience that unique animal perspective and learn to live through the eyes of other living beings to Tucked away in a rather austere building at the far end of create a singularly enhanced experience of nature. Through the Jardin des Plantes in Paris is the largest herbarium in his various animal tracking tales, Baptiste Morizot gives us a the world. It is full of secrets and wonders: eight million chance to “enforest” ourselves, as Canadian trackers in the preserved plant specimens, the fruit of 350 years of Great North say – to enter the forests of the tundra, gathering and pressing driven by the sheer passion of wastelands or kitchen gardens and let their forest inhabit explorers and conquerors of new lands, who boldly us. We learn how to pay increased attention to the living ventured forth into the vast expanses of a natural world world around us and inside us and to cohabit with it. that was then so rich and so little understood. Being a These encounters with living beings become moments for botanist is being in the field amid the mud and the philosophical enquiry, revealing our relationship with the unknown: many have given their names to plants, wild. They tell us about the inner-animal inside us. We discovered and classified them, and elevated to the status learn how we can cohabit with grizzly bears and the virtues of a science the joys of wandering through nature, we share with the snow panther. sometimes at risk to their own lives. In this book, Marc Jeanson brings them to life and pays tribute to these ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Baptiste Morizot is a writer and lecturer inventors and researchers. It reveals to us the working lives in philosophy at the University of Aix-Marseille. His work is devoted to the relationship between the human and living and is of its practitioners and the reality of the expeditions to based on extensive fieldwork, especially in tracking wild animals. places that many see as godforsaken where the few He has also written DIPLOMATES. COHABITER AVEC LES surviving palm trees are to be found by chance in hotel car LOUPS SUR UNE AUTRE CARTE DU VIVANT (Wildproject, parks. It describes as well how biodiversity is threatened 2016). with extinction, and emphasises the need to keep a record of all these species that evolve, disappear, or migrate. « Servi par une plume talentueuse, le pistage devient un art de lire et de transmettre les signes entre espèces ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Marc Jeanson is a botanist and et constitue pour Morizot la base d'une « diplomatie » agronomist. He is in charge of France’s national herbarium at the agissant à l'interface entre cultures humaine et animale. Musée national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. He acts as a scientific » Philosophie Magazine advisor to botanical associations and was the curator of the ‘Gardens’ exhibition held at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2017. Charlotte Fauve is a landscape gardener, journalist and « Écoute humble et intime de l'autre, oubli de soi et documentary filmmaker. She wrote the series ‘Etonnants jardins’ projection dans l'autre, le pistage prépare l'avenir, et for the television channel Arté. emplit de joie. » Le Temps 27 NATURE Emanuele Coccia Laurence Paoli MÉTAMORPHOSES. LA MATIÈRE DE LA VIE ZOOS, UN NOUVEAU PACTE AVEC LA (Metamorphoses: The Stuff of Life) NATURE Rivages, May 2019 (Zoos: A New Pact with Nature) Buchet Chastel, March 2019, 128 pages

◊ After plants, Coccia is now concentrating on all living things (from biology to literature) to Once the subject of harsh criticism, zoos have evolved. formulate a philosophy of the mysterious They are no longer places to lock depressed animals up phenomenon of metamorphosis. and watch them pace back and forth. Not only do zoos Through the results of contemporary biology research, now provide livable habitats to the many species they as well as myths and literature, the author of “The Life house, they have also become key players in the of Plants” lays down the foundations of a philosophy of protection and defense of biodiversity. metamorphosis. As our planet is undergoing the sixth phase of mass Metamorphosis has always fascinated both scientist and extinction in its history, it has in fact become essential to fiction writers, yet it has rarely been considered by safeguard the ever-more-threatened existence of wildlife: philosophers. All living things are subjected to it: rhinoceroses, pandas, oryxes and panthers are not the only metamorphosis is the most basic, original experience of ones to find refuge in zoos. Even turtles, frogs and more life, the one that defines its strengths and limitations most are protected by programs that breed and preserve precisely. Butterflies and frogs aren’t the only ones affected species, and and reintroduce them into the wild. by it. The fact is, since Darwin, we have known that all species and all forms of life are just metamorphoses of Along with this fundamental mission come multiple other forms, many of which have since disappeared. Thus challenges, particularly concerning educating the general humanity is no more than the metamorphosis that myriad public: with over 700 million visitors a year (10% of the animal-life forms were subjected to before becoming what world’s population), zoos have become the only place we now are. We experience metamorphosis on the scale where many children – and adults – are exposed to the of our own lives as well, when we are born, going from an experience of nature, the only thing that can truly awaken “amniotic” existence to an “air-supported” life form. More them to the new pact for which the author has high hopes. generally, feeding of all types is a perfect example of it: eating means being the place where the eaten undergoes ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Laurence Paoli knows the world of metamorphosis into the flesh of the eater. All life, as a zoos, where she has spent her whole career, like the palm of her metamorphic act, is the simultaneous fashioning of a body hand. In 2001, within the framework of France’s National Natural History Museum, she founded the first communication service and of the world in which it lives. specialized in preserving animal biodiversity in all four animal parks run by the Museum. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Emanuele Coccia, the author, most notably, of Sensible Life and The Life of Plants (Rencontres philosophiques of Monaco Prize, translated into 9 languages), is one of our most innovative contemporary philosophers.

28 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue ART / AESTHETICS

Lydie Salvayre Brigitte Benkemoun MARCHER JUSQU’AU SOIR JE SUIS LE CARNET DE DORA MAAR (Walk On Till The Evening) Dora Maar’s Notebook Stock, April 2019, 220 pages Stock, May 2019, 260 pages

◊ Second title of the Series: “My Night in the ◊ There will be a retrospective of Dora Maar’s work Museum” *. at the Tate in London and the Getty in Los Angeles in late 2019 and 2020 ◊ Lydie Salvayre was awarded the 2014 Prix Goncourt for her novel PAS PLEURER. Imagine holding the address book of Dora Maar, ◊ With Giacometti’s statue The Walking Man as a Picasso’s muse, in your hand! starting point, Lydie Salvayre undertakes an emotional re-exploration of her indignation and By complete chance, Brigtte Benkemoun bought a diary her family’s story as the daughter of a Spanish online, and in it she found private notes dating back to exile. 1952. Twenty pages of telephone numbers and addresses Face to face of the 2014 Goncourt winner and for Cocteau, Chagall, Eluard, Giacometti.... the greatest artists of the post-war period. Giacometti’s The Walking Man. When she finds out that the address book belonged to Lydie Salvayre spent a whole night alone at the Picasso Dora Maar, she decides to track down information about Museum during its Picasso-Giacometti exhibition. Having this muse of Picasso’s. Two years of research helped her had a lasting passion for The Walking Man (a work that she understand the role each of these artist’s played in Dora sees as the very essence of art but had only previously Maar’s life, and she homes in on the mystery and secrets of seen photographed in magazines), she was sure to be a woman who gave herself to Picasso before giving herself profoundly moved when confronted with so much beauty. to God. And yet, seeing this “motionless, frozen but also moving body, like a waves at sea that the cold has frozen the ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brigitte Benkemoun is a journalist and swell” produces only mild irritation in her. writer. She has written two previous books.

Is she illiterate in beauty? Is this sensibility passed on only among the well-to-do to reinforce their exclusivity? Unless the space is cramping the piece and robbing it of its profound message? She is in a turmoil and plagued by questions.

Between the lines – as the author reveals her relationship with her father, her family of exiled Spanish communists, her obsession with humility and the denunciation anchored within every injustice – the reader gradually discovers her demanding expectations of art and her fear of death. A powerful, full-blooded read.

* The concept of the collection is quite simple: for a whole night, a museum opens its door to an author for him to wander among the paintings, sculptures, work of art for inspiration. The first book of the series was The Painter devouring the female nude by Kamel Daoud who after a night at the Picasso Museum writes a literary essay about Western and Eastern perception of Picasso’s paintings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lydie Salvayre has written some twenty books, translated into many languages, including PAS PLEURER which won the 2014 prix Goncourt (300,000 copies sold).

29 ART / AESTHETICS Stéphane Lambert Dominique Fernandez VISIONS DE GOYA LE PEINTRE ABANDONNÉ (Goya’s Visions) (The Abandoned Painter) Arléa, March 2019, 140 pages Grasset, February 2019, 259 pages

◊ A fascinating immersion in the universe of one of ◊ Returning to the rich and long career of an artist th of genius, the book takes the form of a journey the greatest painters of the 20 century. through a work that professed the unshakeable Structured like a novel, Le Peintre abandonné recounts vitality of creation in the face of the threat of chaos. a little-known episode in the life of Pablo Picasso: the two years he spent in Perpignan from 1953 to 1955 Two centuries after their composition (1819-1823), in a after his wife Françoise Gilot left him abruptly. world facing new challenges, Stéphane Lambert examines the extraordinary cycle of black paintings of In 1953, Pablo Picasso was 72 years old. There had been Goya to probe their inexhaustible topicality. so many conquests and so many women in his life... But when Françoise Gilot, his partner for nearly a decade and By this dive into the imagination of his most haunting the mother of his last two children Claude and Paloma, obsessions, the Spanish painter had transfigured all the leaves him out of the blue, his life falls apart. pictorial genres of the time and permanently upset the vision of our humanity. Goya (1746-1828) went through In excruciating pain, the great painter seeks refuge in all the humiliations and honors, the assaults of illness, the Perpignan at the residence of his friends Paul and Aimée war and the eddies of history, with the fabulous gift of where, safe from the outside world and surrounded by transforming ravages into opportunities to revolutionize his many friends and artists, he is able to revitalise his spirits. art. For many weeks, he doesn’t pick up a paintbrush and abandons painting completely. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1974 in Brussels, Stéphane Lambert is a novelist, poet, essayist. His literary work is marked by For many days and nights on end, we see a diminished and a desire to go beyond the classification of genres and forms, a helpless artist - he is awaiting a reckoning, but it is slow in concern that has brought him closer to the visual arts and to be coming... And then finally one day he asks for palettes and interested, from the inside, in the process of creation. Alongside paints and starts working again. Inspired by his creative his books, he has written radio drama for France Culture, and co- wrote with the director Claude Régy the book Dans le désordre power? The charms of the south of France? His meeting (Actes Sud, 2011 - prize for the best book on theater). He won with the young Jacqueline Roque, who will become his last the Roland Jouvenel Prize 2017 (French Academy Prize) for his wife? book Avant Godot. We will never know what really happened, but something clicks and the artist picks himself up and embarks on a new love affair, rediscovering a creative thirst that will engender some of his finest masterpieces. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dominique Fernandez, a member of the Académie Française, is the author of a rich and substantial oeuvre of over fifty works (novels, essays, illustrated books) for which he has won many prizes.

30 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Sylvie Aubenas & Claude Schopp Pascal Brioist L’ORIGINE DU MONDE. VIE DU MODÈLE LES AUDACES DE LEONARD DE VINCI (The Origin Of The World. A Model’s Life) (Leonardo Da Vinci’s Audacious Mind) Libella, October 2018, 160 pages Stock, March 2019, 440 pages

What if we exploded the myth of “Genius” and stepped ◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Berenberg), Argentina (Libros del Zorzal). into Leonardo’s workshop to understand how his mind worked? ◊ Ongoing offer in Italy. In this short essay, Claude Schopp describes how he Leonardo da Vinci is undeniably one of the most illustrious came across new elements enabling him to identify the men to have lived on the planet, and this, it’s said, is down model in Gustave Courbet’s celebrated painting, to his genius and his superhuman ability to grasp every aspect of knowledge and experience. L’origine du monde. But this “genius” from Tuscany conceals many mysteries. A strong literary essay that sheds new light on Gustave How, for example, do you become a courtier when you’re Courbet's famous and at time scandalous painting born illegitimate? How do you become a military engineer L'Origine du monde ("The Origin of the World") that may when you started out in the art studios of Florence? How be seen at the Musée d'Orsay and belonged for a while to do you become Francis I’s “first painter, engineer and Jacque Lacan. architect”? How do you segue from personal obsessions to universal inventiveness? This book invites us to discover As he was working on the correspondance between every “audacity” of this man who wanted to understand all George Sand & Dumas son, Claude Schopp inadvertently the world’s secrets. resolved a 152 years old mystery, unveiling the identity of the young woman who posed as a model for Courbet : ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A specialist in cultural history, Pascal Constance Queniault. Weaving himself into the text, he Brioist is also renowned for his work on the history of science tells us what is known about the dancer and and technology. We have him to thank for the scientific design of demimondaine who posed for Courbet. In a preface, Sylvie the Léonard da Vinci Park at the château du Clos-Lucé in Aubenas, art historian and director of the engravings and Amboise, France, where the Italian inventor lived. He is photography department at the BNF (National Library of commissioning many exhibitions in France and worldwide to France), backs his theory up, and tells us the story behind mark the centenary of da Vinci’s death. the famous painting. This book tells us everything that’s known about the dancer with the dark eyebrows who would soon become a demimondaine and the well-kept mistress of a rich man, and later a woman of good deeds, known for her charitable work. Through excerpts from her letters, articles and her will, he gradually offers a face and a soul to the woman whose genitalia are the very incarnation of Realism.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Claude Schopp is a renowned specialist in the life and work of Alexandre Dumas. In addition to having edited a great number of critical editions, he has discovered several of the novelist’s hitherto unknown works, most notably LE CHEVALIER DE SAINTE HERMINE (The Knight of Sainte Hermine). In 2017, DUMAS FILS OU L’ANTI-OEDIPE that he wrote with Marianne Schopp, his wife, received the prestigious Goncourt Prize for Biography.

31 SOCIAL SCIENCES SOCIAL SCIENCES

Didier Eribon Didier Eribon RETOUR À REIMS ÉCRITS SUR LA PSYCHANALYSE (Returning to Reims) (Writings on Psychoanalysis) Fayard, 2009, 252 pages Fayard, February 2019, 250 pages

◊ 13,500 copies sold From his Réflexions sur la question gay to his Principes d’une pensée critique, the question of ◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Suhrkamp), World English (Mit Press), Castilan (Libros del Zorzal), psychoanalysis and the need for a radical critique of the Netherlands (Leesmagazijn), Norway discipline has held a central place in Didier Eribon’s (Aschehoug), Italy (RIZZOLI), China (Ginkgo), writings. Korea (Moonji), Sweden (Verbal), Israel (Am Oved), Portguese (Ayine), Poland (Karakter), The present collection of texts and articles, some Greece (Nissos) Czech (Tranzit), Croatian published here for the very first time, demonstrates the language rights sold to Multimedijalni. importance of “escaping” the hold of psychoanalysis in ◊ An eminent Parisian intellectual, gay and politically order to develop a theory of subjectivity. The writings call progressive, from a conservative, working—class into question both the history of critical thinking in relation provincial family, Didier Eribon has written a book to psychoanalysis, and the main theories of the discipline that will be of great interest to those concerned itself – the Oedipus complex, phallic symbols, castration with questions of social class, sexuality, and anxiety, and so on – to forge a new sociological and intellectual community. political theory of the subject and the unconscious. ◊ A fascinating and courageous account of how one of France's leading writers has negotiated a ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Didier Eribon is a philosopher and a sociologist, as well as a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth complex, frequently conflicted confluence of social College (USA). He is the author of several books, including and psychic identities. RETOUR À REIMS (2009), LA SOCIÉTÉ COMME VERDICT A memoir and a meditation on individual and class (2013) and PRINCIPES D'UNE PENSÉE CRITIQUE (2016). identity, and the forces that keep us locked in political closets.

After his father dies, Didier Eribon returns to his hometown of Reims and rediscovers the working-class world he had left behind thirty years earlier. For years, Eribon had thought of his father largely in terms of the latter's intolerable homophobia. Yet his father's death provokes new reflection on Eribon's part about how multiple processes of domination intersect in a given life and in a given culture. Eribon sets out to investigate his past, the history of his family, and the trajectory of his own life. His story weaves together a set of remarkable reflections on the class system in France, on the role of the educational system in class identity, on the way both class and sexual identities are formed, and on the recent history of French politics, including the shifting voting patterns of the working classes—reflected by Eribon's own family, which changed its allegiance from the Communist Party to the National Front.

A remarkable book of sociological inquiry and critical theory, of interest to anyone concerned with the direction of leftist politics in the contemporary world, and to anyone who has ever experienced how sexual identity can clash with other parts of one's identity.

32 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue TRUE STORIES/ MEMOIRS

Kausalya Sankar & Guillaume Venetitiay François Heisbourg AU NOM DE SANKAR CET ÉTRANGE NAZI QUI SAUVA MON PÈRE (In The Name Of Sankar) (The Strange Nazi Who Saved My Father Fayard, April 2019, 250 pages The Odyssey of Baron von Hoiningen) Stock, February 2019, 336 pages

The story of Kausalya and Sankar could be that of a Greek tragedy. Kausalya is from a high caste. Sankar is Baron von Hoiningen is a mystery. A Nazi, he an Untouchable. The two never should have met. nevertheless saved hundreds of Jews and members of the Resistance during the war... one of which was But Sankar receives a scholarship for a prestigious François Heisbourg’s father. engineering school, and the two young people, from two very different worlds, meet, like thousands of other This narrative could have been called « The Man Without students. They meet, and they fall in love. Confident that a Face », inasmuch that it has been so difficult to find a love will conquer all, they decide to get married. photographic trace of the strange Baron Franz Von Hoiningen. Member of the Nazi party, this German officer And then everything changes. On March 13, 2016, saved hundreds of Jews and members of the Resistance Kausalya and Sankar are waiting for the bus to go home. (one of which was the father of the author), found himself They will never get there. Five unmasked men jump onto implicated in the plot against Hitler, flew Germany with the two mopeds and, armed with swords and long knives, they Gestapo on his heels, and finished his odyssey in the arms cut Sankar to pieces. In the ambulance, a few minutes later, of his beloved in Luxembourg. He braved all dangers in the 22-year-old man dies, the victim of an honor killing extreme conditions. But why is it impossible to find even ordered by Kausalya’s own parents. the smallest amount of information concerning the reasons for his U-turn, about his opinions following the war? Why Kausalya has lost everything, but she chooses to turn her do his descendants maintain such a silence around this grief and anger into a fight. Today a symbol of the fight man? against caste, Kausalya tells the tragic story of their love cut short in a remarkable tribute to Sankar. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: François Heisbourg is a special advisor at the Foundation for Strategic Research, chair of the International ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Kausalya Sankar is a twenty-one- Institute for Strategic Studies of London and of the Geneva year-old Indian activist crusading, since the death of her husband, Centre for Security Policy. He has published, among others, Sankar, against honor killings and crimes against the Untouchables. APRÈS AL QAÏDA (2009) and COMMENT PERDRE LA Guillaume Vénétitiay is a freelance journalist. GUERRE CONTRE LE TERRORISME (2016).

33 TRUE STORIES/ MEMOIRS Jihyun Park & Ana Chai Amatallah Hassan Abdulmughni DEUX CORÉENNES LA REINE DE SANAA (Two Korean Women) (The Queen of Sanaa) Buchet Chastel, March 2019, 272 pages Fayard, February 2019, 220 pages

◊ The tale of the childhood, education, A few months ago Amattalah was forced to flee her imprisonment and escape of the one (Jihyun) country: The war had caught up with her. Now living in intertwines with the constant sense of guilt of the exile, she gives us an unprecedented account of her other (Ana). childhood in Yemen in the grip of violence and ◊ The incredible testimony of women’s extremism. emancipation in contemporary history. The story of a woman from North Korea, Jihyun Park, At the age of eighteen, Amattalah Hassan Abdulmughni as told by a woman from South Korea, Ana Chai. has already been through a lot in life. Before being exiled from Yemen, she was the Prime Minister of a government unlike any other: The “Children’s Council” was comprised After a fairly happy childhood, Jihyun’s life came crashing of thirty-five members, all of whom were minors, who sat down around her. First, part of her family was carried off in parliament alongside their adult counterparts. by the famine; then her younger brother was shot and killed for attempting to flee to China. Jihyun herself was sold by her own family to a Chinese man. Chul, a child was The mission Amattalah had given herself was ambitious, to born of that union. Betrayed and sent back to North say the least: To bring peace to her country, in particular Korea, she was detained for six months before escaping by fighting extrem- ist Shiite militias. From the forced and being reunited with her son. Trekking across China marriage of children to the confinement of women or ten- and Mongolia, she manages to reach South Korea. She’s year-old girls obliged to wear burkas, her battles knew no currently living in Manchester. limits. Or almost.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Amattalah Hassan Abdulmughni ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Jihyun Park was born in Chongjin, has been nicknamed “Yemen’s Malala” by the international press. North Korea in 1968. Since she arrived in the United Kingdom, in Manon Quérouil-Bruneel is a foreign correspondent. 2008, she has been an activist for human rights in her native land. Ana Chai lives with her family in London, but is very involved in the dramatic changes taking place on the Korean peninsula.

34 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue SCIENCE

Pascal Picq Sébastien Balibar L’INTELLIGENCE ARTICIFIELLE ET LES SAVANT CHERCHE REFUGE CHIMPANZÉS DU FUTUR (A Tormented Scientist (AI and the Chimpanzees of the Future Science threatened by totalitarianism) For an Anthropology of Intelligence) Odile Jacob, January 2019, 256 pages Odile Jacob, January 2019, 320 pages

◊ A key, virtually unknown, moment in the history of science ◊ In the face of the challenges of tomorrow connected to the emergence of AI, a lucid and ◊ When science emigrates under pressure from enlightening view by a paleoanthropologist, a totalitarianism specialist in evolution Blending personal narratives, the history of high thermal ◊ From the Neanderthals to AlphaGo, including the conductivity (a research subject of Tisza and of the great apes, an original and enlightening author), and that of scientific politics under the Vichy presentation of all forms of intelligence from the regime, this fascinating text is a major contribution to world of the past, and which will create the world the history of science in the last century. of tomorrow. Is Homo sapiens on the way to being overtaken in the The Hungarian physicist Laszlo Tisza (1907-2009) was an realm of intelligence, the very realm that, since the illustrious unknown (who nonetheless ended up a disappearance of the Neanderthals, enabled him to professor at MIT) until this work by Sébastien Balibar, who uses him as a guide in his exploration of a little- establish his dominance in the world: his intelligence? documented period: the flight of Jewish scientists at the advent of Nazism. This new book retraces the foundations of animal, human, and artificial intelligence using an evolutionist approach: to Granted, we know that Einstein was welcomed at understand how they emerged, how they differ Princeton, and that in Los Alamos General Groves, the fundamentally, and in what ways some are more patron of the Manhattan Project where the Hungarians productive than others depending on the problems and Leo Szilard, John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner were situations to be resolved. Because intelligence, in its most working, had to prohibit them from speaking Hungarian fundamental sense, is the resolution of problems, either during sessions when they were perfecting the atomic real or hypothetical, simple or complex, recent or ancient, bomb. But the extent of scientific emigration in the 1930s foreseeable or unexpected. And from the evolutionary and 40s, and even more so its organization, are largely perspective, the relationships between all these forms of unknown. intelligence receive much more insightful and sound illumination. This tragic and novelistic story portrays the astonishing journeys (the German physicist Fritz London welcomed at Between the recognition of animal intelligence and the the Palais de la Découverte; the brilliant Russian Lev emergence of artificial intelligence, we are entering into a Landau languishing in Stalin’s prisons); and the heroes in new phase in the evolution of the human lineage. And we the shadows, such as the physiologist Henri Laugier or the will have to learn how to live in harmony with all forms of Pasturian microbiologist Louis Rapkine (1904-1948), who intelligence. Why? Imagine that animal and artificial organized and managed to finance the exile of numerous intelligence meet up; there would then be a completely scientists to the United States. Thanks to them, in 1942 a different evolution... “Free School of Higher Learning” was established in New York bringing together, among others, Jacques Maritain, Alexandre Koyré, and Claude Lévi Strauss.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sébastien Balibar, physicist and member of the Académie des sciences, is the author of many scientific books for the general public, notably LA POMME ET L’ATOME, that has been translated into 5 languages : English (Princeton), Italian (Bollati Boringhieri), Korean (Arte Books), Arab (Kalima) and Turkish (Odtu Yayincilik).

35 SCIENCE Éric Vivier & Marc Daëron Sébastien Bohler L’IMMUNOTHÉRAPIE DES CANCERS LE BUG HUMAIN (Cancer Immunotherapy (The Human Bug) Can cancer be cured by our own immune systems?) Robert Laffont, February 2019, 270 pages Odile Jacob, January 2019, 256 pages

Can we fight against themselves? Have our brains become our worst enemies? Sébastien Bolher, a doctor ◊ A radically new approach to the treatment of in neuroscience and editor-in-chief of France’s leading cancer. neuroscience and psychology magazine, tackles the big ◊ A major hope for a new therapy. question from a new perspective, one that's both unsettling and original. We have known for some time that the immune system is capable of ridding an organism of all intruders that threatens its survival. All, or almost all: cancerous tumors The moment we live in is not just critical – it's a genuine escape it. Without our understanding why, cancer thwarts tragedy. Overpopulation, obesity, overproduction: the warning signs in the immune system and proliferates overconsumption, and crippling debt – we have toppled calmly, whereas lethal cells and other lymphocytes nearby into the era of too much, leading humanity straight to its should be able to eliminate it in a few hours. downfall. If the planet’s resources are limited, then so too are our days… it's an unavoidable fact. The idea of reprogramming the immune system to fight against cancer cells, by perfecting antibodies-medication, But while the situation worsens hour by hour, death has promises to be a true therapeutic revolution. Today a been no tangible collective response. We can see the wall complement to classic approaches (chemotherapy and coming towards us and we're doing nothing about it. The radiation), it is gradually asserting itself. Remarkable success knowledge of what awaits us does not seem to be having has already been recorded, alongside unexplained failures, any effect on the course of events. But why? which highlights the power of the approach, but also the difficulty of it: it involves “awakening” the immune system, For the author, the main culprit is not mankind's greed or but not inciting it to declare war on the entire organism. our supposed ill-will, but rather, simply from a physiological standpoint, very makeup of our brains. In the centre of our This is the fascinating story of new cancer brain is a little organ called the striatum that has controlled immunotherapies told here by the authors, from the first our behavior as long as our species have been on Earth. It observations in the early twentieth century to the has wired the human brain to pursue five goals whose discovery of points of control that block immunity, and the objective is survival: eating, reproducing, acquiring power, perfection of the first generation of “anti-cancer extending our territory, and asserting our dominance over medication” that liberate immunity. A notable fact: this others. However, the striatum functions so well that it is scientific revolution is accompanied by an unprecedented constantly perfecting itself (and mankind has indeed proven reorganization of collaborations between research and to be the dominant mammal on the planet) and is industry, the sign of increased effectiveness. Immuno- always demanding more rewards for its work. Like a drug oncology is being born under the best of auspices, and will addict, it cannot master its own tendency toward excess. make the headlines in the years to come. At no point does it try to restrain itself.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Éric Vivier, professor of immunology Yesterday our brains were our allies, allowing us to at the university Aix-Marseille, honorary director of the Centre triumph over nature. Now, they have become our worst d’immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, and scientific director of the enemies. Société de biotechnologie Innate-Pharma, is a member of the French Academy of Medicine and of the Institut Universitaire de ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A graduate of France’s prestigious École France. Marc Daëron, head of research at Inserm, former head polytechnique and specialist in molecular neurobiology, Sébastien of the department of immunology at the Institut Pasteur, is a Bolher’s career path has led to journalism. He directs the review member of the French Institute for the History and Philosophy of Cerveau et Psycho and is also a television commentator on France Science and Technology. Inter (La Tête au Carré) and Arte (28 Minutes).

36 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue POPULAR SCIENCE

Perrine Rogiez-Thubert Éric Bouhier L’AVEU DES INDICES LE JUSTE MILIEU (Crime Scenes – How to Make Evidence Talk) (A Whole New Ballgame Payot, March 2019, 400 pages The Book that’s Got Male Genitals Covered) Plon, November 2018, 336 pages

◊ The author introduces us to the history of forensic science and describes key cases that helped further that branch of science. ◊ A cheerful and instructive book that aims to help ◊ A police captain and frequent expert witness who men get to know themselves better and to is respected by her peers, she has a precise, well- reassure them in their relationships to others.” documented and confident writing style. After the best-selling “Wonder Down Under: A User’s ◊ Foreword by Franck Thilliez Guide to the Vagina”, it was time for male genitals to This manual of thanatology, narrating how to study a get a serious but funny book about their ups and downs, crime scene and what happens to victims’ bodies, and ins and outs, too… Read it, and you’ll know enables readers to delve into the bowels of what police everything, absolutely everything there is to know! officers, forensic scientists, and coroners actually do. Nina Brochmann and Ellen Stocken Dahl’s remarkably well- documented book (The Wonder Down Under: A User’s This reference book starts by teaching about the different Guide to the Vagina) trail-blazed a new vision of female kinds of deaths that can be considered suspicious. Then a genitals, described with cheerful complicity. Yet when you meticulous study of a crime scene enables readers to delve read the bibliography carefully, you realize that there is into the bowels of what police officers, technicians and nothing equally well-documented and enjoyable about coroners actually do. The various procedures in an autopsy male genitals, and their ups and downs… let alone their ins and what happens to the body next are the last step. A and outs! Which is why the lion’s share of this book is glossary at the end of the book provides definitions for devoted to describing our sexual organs and their private over 125 thanatological terms. mechanisms, before it gets into how that fine machinery works, alone or “à deux”. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Perrine Rogiez-Thubert, 45, is a renowned member of France’s Forensic Science Bureau. A police captain and head of the Bureau’s fingerprint section, she is an ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Doctor, copywriter, museographer and expert witness in criminal court. In addition, she is both Franck teacher, Éric Bouhier has been a writer for over a decade. Thilliez’s forensics consultant and a frequent speaker on thanatology at conferences for the crime professionals of the Paris Criminal Investigation Unit.

37 POPULAR SCIENCE Clara Grima Viviane Lalande JE FAIS DES MATHS EN LAÇANT MES LE MONDE A DES RACINES CARRÉES CHAUSSURES The World Has Square Roots Eclectic Ideas To Tickle (Doing Maths As I Tie Up My Shoelaces) Your Scientific Streak Les Arènes, May 2018, 300 pages Éditions de l’Homme, October 2018, 200 pages

◊ 5,000 copies sold. ◊ Scilabus, the YouTube channel created by the ◊ Rights sold in: Korea (Daonbooks), China (Turing author, has more than 100,000 subscribers and Book), Spain (Ariel). over 3 million views. It’s the YouTube channel devoted to pure sciences and produced by a ◊ A second chance for all those who have trouble woman with the most subscribers in the French- grasping mathematics, or who hate them. speaking world. ◊ Moments of pleasure for all those who love the ◊ Scilabus has over 70 on-line science videos.! The poetic and whimsical side of maths! author succeeds in making us understand and appreciate the scientific ideas surrounding us in 50 fun ways to review your mathematical knowledge our daily lives.! through everyday experiences ◊ A book based on the pleasure of learning, knowing Maths in everyday life. In a funny and practical way, Clara and understanding.!The book’s tone is very enjoyable: lively, amusing, colourful. Grima reveals to us how maths are everywhere in our lives, including the most unexpected situations. Better yet, Everyday situations viewed through a scientific lens. she teaches us how maths can help us to understand or Discover how simple scientific ideas are applied both in solve certain everyday problems. She writes in a daily life and in the lives of researchers and experts on straightforward, concise manner. Her short texts are the cutting edge in every field. illustrated with clear, attractive illustrations. Each chapter has two sections. The first looks at a simple Maths are everywhere. Tying up your laces, catching a idea and reveals its applications in everyday life. How do Pokémon, counting up your friends on Facebook, nailing a sound waves travel, and how can you use them to sound- great deal, wrapping up a gift without wasting paper, proof yourself from your neighbours? Given how heat is escaping tsunamis, getting a couch down the hallway, transmitted, which cooking pot will be most efficient? How understanding the “olas” in a stadium and search engine is it that an airplane holding more than 300 people isn’t algorithms, weather forecasting or assessing the football smellier? results, and even rescuing your relationship by solving the problem with the lavatory seat... through a wide variety of Through interviews with researchers and experts, the very real situations, Clara Grima shows the reader how second section examines how the idea can be explained practical applications of mathematical logic can help to from a scientific and technological point of view. How do understand better the workings of everyday situations, drugs travel through the human body? How was the social networks and even football. neutrino discovered? How is a piece of evidence analyzed? How could a simple sensor save African elephants from ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Clara Grima is a Spanish academic who poaching? has already published super-readable books for children. However her blog makes maths accessible for adults. She finds maths in a wide variety of subjects – taken from daily life or After finishing The world has square roots, you’ll look at current affairs – and describes them in a lively, clear and scientific ideas from a new perspective: not just as formulas entertaining manner. In Spain, she is representative of the atypical to learn by heart, but as keys to the big (and small) character of the red-haired Andalusian: funny...and yet questions of life! mathematical. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in France, Viviane Lalande holds a mechanical engineering degree, a master’s and a doctorate. She is the creator of the Scilabus YouTube channel, which presents sci- ence as a tool available to everyone, in a light-hearted but rigorous way. On the program are 5-to-10-minute videos of experiments, explanations, interviews, etc.

38 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue S.M. Denham Norman Ferguson AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE PROJECT APOLLO (A History of Seeing) (The Moon Odyssey Explained) The History Press, September 2019, 256 pages The History Press, May 2019, 192 pages 20 b&w ill.

◊ Fantastic and important addition to Smart ◊ Aviation author Norman Ferguson reveals Thinking genre. fascinating facts and figures, and recounts amazing stories about the astronauts, their spacecraft and ◊ The first book of its kind on the history of sight. their missions whose achievements have never been surpassed. ◊ Rigorous but accessible, dipping into many periods of history and aspects of science, art and Launch into the world’s most famous spaceflights with psychology, using an easy-to-follow structure. facts and figures about the astronauts, the spacecraft ◊ A global history that encompasses the evolution of and their historic missions humankind - and their eyes - as a whole. This book traces the history of seeing using eleven The Apollo missions to the Moonare some of the most successfuland well-remembered manned spaceflights that inventions, from the first evolutionary stirrings of sight to NASA has ever accomplished, taking place in the heyday of the present. space travel. Indeed, the programme was the only one to achieve the ultimate goal of placing humankind on the From the mastery of fire a million years ago, humans Moon, which it did no less than six times between 1969 repeatedly invented new ways to see their surroundings, and 1972. each other and themselves. Artificial light, early art, mirrors, writing, lenses, printing, photography, film, television, ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Ferguson has had a lifelong smartphones. These tools didn’t just add to our visual interest in spaceflight and aviation, andhas been writing repertoire, they shaped Western culture and made us who professionally for more than fifteen years. His books include From we are. Airbus to Zeppelin and The Little Book of Aviation (both THP), and he has also written comedy for BBC radio and BBC and As Far As The Eye Can See reveals that with each new Channel 4 television. He lives in Edinburgh. invention that changed how or what we see, we changed ourselves, and the world around us. Visual technologies propelled the human journey from walking apes to masters of nature to self- obsessed screen junkies. And with each revolution in seeing, sight slowly eclipsed our other senses.

Having come this far, Denham asks, are we now at peak seeing? Can our eyes keep up with technology’s relentless march? Have we gone as far as the eye can see?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: As head of the BBC’s TV strategy unit, Susan Denham spent many years studying the relationship between television viewers, content, and technology. She noticed that new technologies often have surprising effects on how people behave. Prior to joining the BBC, Susan developed TV channels for a Hollywood movie studio. Susan has a first class degree in Economics and Law from Sydney University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

39 PSYCHOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY

Christophe Haag Malvine Zalcberg LA CONTAGION ÉMOTIONNELLE DEVENIR FEMME, DE MÈRE EN FILLE (Emotional Contagion) (Becoming a Woman, from Mother to Daughter) Albin Michel, April 2019, 350 pages Albin Michel, May 2019, 280 pages

Do you know the most contagious virus on earth? No, The construction of femininity is closely linked to the it’s not the flu or Ebola... It’s the emotion virus. We have mental resources mothers pass on to their daughters. all had it and transmitted it. A mother-daughter relationship that is too intense can, for How does ‘emotional’ contagion work? What are the most example, make the passage from girl to woman a difficult contagious emotions and what are their effects – positive one, leading to problems in the acquisition of femininity; and negative – on us? Are you easily contaminated? Can one that is too distant can place the girl in an eternal never we become ‘decontaminated’ from destructive emotions? satisfied quest for love. To answer these questions in an original and entertaining manner, Christophe Haag takes the reader into the cut- Right from the beginning of the relationship, mother and throat atmosphere of a trading room, to the heart of daughter are in close interdependence: what the former expeditions high in the mountains, in the RAID’s expects is not always what the latter can give, bearing in ‘negotiation’ cell, to the bench in a high court, etc. From mind that the mother does not always receive what she these extraordinary places, you will learn lots of useful expects from her daughter in terms of consolidation of her things for the more ordinary life you (perhaps) lead. own femininity... There are many configurations: absence of regard, disdain, lack of love, jealousy, favouritism, ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Christophe Haag, a researcher in social misunderstanding, submission, appropriation, feelings of psychology, is a host on France 5’s televised health magazine, insecurity, the present or absent father contribution, ill- contributes to the Harvard Business Review and is a Professor treatment, castration... The author explains them with great HDR at Emlyon Business He published GÉNÉRATION QE, clarity providing cases illustrated in films. She gives readers ARME ANTI-CRISE (Pearson), LA POULPE ATTITUDE. ET SI the keys to understand problems and sometimes even to VOUS AUSSI VOUS UTILISIEZ VOS INTUITIONS POUR solve them. PRENDRE LA BONNE DECISION, (Michel Lafon). ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Malvine Zalcberg is a Brazilian psychoanalyst who trained in France. She authored QU'EST-CE QU'UNE FILLE ATTEND DE SA MÈRE ? prefaced by Aldo Naouri (Odile Jacob, 2010).

40 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue EDUCATION & PARENTING

Suzanne Vallières Didier Pleux GUIDE DE SURVIE POUR PARENTS ÉPUISÉS DÉVELOPPER LA CONCENTRATION DE (A Survival Guide For Exhausted Parents) SON ADO Éditions de l’Homme, April 2019,192 pages (Developing Your Teen’s Concentration) Odile Jacob, February 2019, 128 pages

◊ As a psychologist, the author offers real support and advice for preventing or overcoming parental burnout. Her comments are based on the most ◊ Concrete advice to help adolescents concentrate. recent research into the subject. ◊ A book that addresses adolescents directly. ◊ A dynamic and guilt-relieving approach, based on practical solutions and tools. An illustrated book of concrete coaching: with advice founded on extensive experience in the field, a ◊ !Short chapters for easy, fast and targeted reading. mentoring and reassuring voice to help teens develop The author of the successful “Psycho-tips” series offers and improve their ability to concentrate and work for her best advice for avoiding the parental burnout trap. better results.

In a world that bombards us with information, where In this book, Didier Pleux is addressing adolescents. perfectionism and performance are emphasized, and the Constantly attracted to electronic screens of all sorts, they list of tasks and sources of stress keep piling up, many often have great difficulty concentrating for long periods on parents wind up feeling overwhelmed by their role and subjects that don’t provide them immediate pleasure. But, exhausted. Halfway between an essay and a handbook, without concentration, without effort, there can be no written in a tone that blends compassion and pragmatism, learning, and so grades suffer. This is why it is so important this book is a tool for fighting back against a growing to again stress an essential quality: concentration. phenomenon: parental burnout, a reality that affects both women and men. To develop and practice one’s ability to concentrate in order to rediscover an interest in learning, to know how to The author shows us how to recognize the red flags (also defer immediate pleasure to derive greater satisfaction known as the “burn-in” phase), so as to better understand based on good grades and a good self-image – this is the how we got into this situation and avoid sinking into ex- program Didier Pleux proposes. haustion. And, for those who are already suffering from burnout, the author suggests ways of approaching it and ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Didier Pleux is a doctor in tools for recovery. developmental psychology, a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and the author of reference for topics in education. He directs Thanks to this book, you’ll make concrete changes in your the French Institute for Cognitive Therapy. He is the author of routine, be better able to organize your time and manage several best-selling books, including: DE L’ENFANT ROI À your stress, learn to delegate tasks and accept L’ENFANT TYRAN; EXPRIMER SA COLÈRE SANS PERDRE LE imperfection... In short, you’ll pick up the reins of your CONTRÔLE; UN ENFANT HEUREUX; LES ADULTES TYRANS; LES 10 COMMANDEMENTS DU BON SENS family life with confidence and renewed well-being. ÉDUCATIF; DÉVELOPPER LE SELF-CONTROL DE SON ENFANT; and LE COMPLEXE DE THÉTIS. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Psychologist Suzanne Vallières has worked in media since 1996. In addition to contributing to a range of magazines, she shares the results of her more than twenty years of ex- perience with young people as a specialized trainer, psychotherapist, lecturer and mother of three children.

41 EDUCATION & PARENTING Pr. Marcel Rufo & Pr. Philippe Duverger Sonia Krief QUI COMMANDE ICI ? CONSEILS AUX PA- J'ACCUEILLE MON BÉBÉ! RENTS D’ENFANTS TYRANS (Welcoming My Baby (Who’s In Charge, Here? Some Advice To The Parents 30 Crucial First Days to Create Bonds) Of Tyrannical Children) Albin MIchel, May 2019, 192 pages Anne Carrière, October 2018, 250 pages

◊ With gentleness, sensitivity and benevolence, ◊ Through a panel of cases, the authors exlore the Sonia revives the art of parenting and supports all connections between a tyrannical behaviour and young parents in the first moments of a great intellectual precocity or the inability to tolerate adventure that catalyses happiness and worry. frustration. ◊ Extremely practical, this book gives down-to-earth ◊ Most of all, they search for ways to help the advice and describes in detail the right attitudes parents to overcome their feeling of confusion and and reflexes to feel confident from the very first helplessness and seek the assistance of day! professionals. Sonia Krief explains all the crucial stages from the ◊ Finally, they restore the educational value of baby’s birth to the end of its first month of life. authority and redefine the place of the child within the family. Four weeks to create a bond of unfailing attachment with This book was born from a simple statement of fact: the its parents: skin to skin, breast or bottle feeding, bathing children who come to consult a child psychiatrist today and massaging, returning home, crying, communicating with baby... are not the same as their predecessors from the 1960s to the 1980s. She moves beyond the merely technical dimension by awakening parents to the psycho-affective aspect of all so- Notably, you can now meet a large proportion of called ‘ordinary’ gestures. tyrannical children, who in the past represented an exception. Tyrannical children are defined as domineering ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sonia Krief, a childcare assistant for and hyper-demanding children, who won’t hesitate to almost forty years, perfected the Thalasso Baby Bath which she resort to physical violence, intimidation and blackmail to proposes in the first hours of life, in the presence of the get their parents to obey all of their commands. enchanted parents. A star of the social networks and medias with the huge success of her ‘Sonia’s bath’ videos: up to 48 million Professors Marcel Rufo et Philippe Duverger, who come views on Youtube. J’ACCUEILLE MON BÉBÉ is her first book. from two different generations of child psychiatrists, try and get to the core of the issue through pivotal questions: is that situation the result of an exceedingly permissive education, at home and at school? Is it a symptom of the failure, over a few decades, of an evolution and a desire to understand the children, which led us to grant them every right while renouncing to teach them to obey, to be polite and to respect adults?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Marcel Rufo is a child psychiatrist who was in charge of la Maison de Solenn at Cochin hospital in Paris, before creating l’Espace méditerranéen de l’adolescence, in Salvator hospital in Marseilles. He wrote many books published by éditions Anne Carrière. Philippe Duverger is a child psychiatrist who runs the child and adolescent psychia- try department in Angers university hospital and a university professor. He published two books at éditions Anne Carrière.

42 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue SELF-HELP

Isabelle Crouzet Agnès Australe LA FORCE DU SOURIRE LE YOGA AU LIT! (Smile Power) 30 POSTURES ULTRA SIMPLES POUR S’Y JC Lattès, January 2019, 184 pages METTRE (Yoga Without Getting Out of Bed 30 Ultra Easy Poses to Get Started) Albin Michel, March 2019, 128 pages

◊ A delicious little book to discover the positive impact of a smile at the heart of our health and well-being. ◊ Through a thorough investigation compelling important discoveries in psychology, neuroscience ◊ With colour illustrations and diagrams that and sociology, Isabelle Crouzet demonstrates that explain the poses at a glance. the smile is at the heart of our social relationships ◊ Lots of little exercises to become aware of one’s and our well-being. body and help it to relax deeply and develop Discover the positive impact of a smile, that simple muscles, without forcing. contraction of facial muscles at the heart of our health From 5 minutes a day. Seated poses, lying on the and well-being. stomach, on the back, breathing and relaxation exercises, meditation poses, yoga for the eyes, A smile is more than a display of joy, it is an excellent stretching, tantra yoga... remedy that we too often neglect and it fastens us to each other like Velcro. Through her thorough investigation of No need for a special yoga mat or a fashionable outfit, this the smile, the numerous important discoveries in simple new routine can be practiced in the morning (to psychology, neuroscience and sociology and many personal gain energy) and/or in the evening (to revitalize and anecdotes, Isabelle Crouzet demonstrates that the smile is improve our sleep)... all this quite simply from the comfort at the heart of our social relationships and our well-being. of your bed! Here are some of the secrets she reveals: ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Agnès Australe is a great yoga Just one smile is enough to lower blood pressure, slow practitioner, which lets her maintain equilibrium in her down your pulse and lower the stress hormone cortisol. professional life and as mother of a family living in Paris. Le yoga The more you smile, the happier you are. A smile reduces au lit is her first book. conflict, regulates emotion and social interaction. In a progressively more digitalized world, it reminds us of our common humanity.

After reading this book, you’ll want to smile all the time because to smile is to take the first step to finding joy in life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Isabelle Crouzet is a translator specialized in psychology. LA FORCE DU SOURIRE is her first book.

43 HEALTH & WELL BEING HEALTH & WELL BEING

Pr David KHAYAT Jean-Marie Bourre L’ENQUÊTE VÉRITÉ LE PROGRAMME POUR BIEN NOURRIR (Clinical Investigation You Will Never Be Afraid Of VOTRE CERVEAU Cancer Anymore) (A Program to Feed Your Brain Well) Albin Michel, September 2018, 300 pages Odile Jacob, April 2019, 320 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Vietnam. ◊ Jean-Marie Bourre, who discovered omega-3, one of the preeminent specialists in the dietetics of the “I’m inviting you into a police investigation. Because – brain. make no mistake – cancer is a criminal. A potential murderer who succeeds its killing mission if it is not ◊ Eating well is essential for the functioning of one’s stopped in time. brain. ◊ A clear and instructive approach that enables the On our side, we have certain clues. Some of them are under our noses – so close we can’t see them! But how reader to understand what is !needed to be at the and why do these ‘clues’ trigger a cancer? That’s a different height of one’s intellectual abilities. story. We must move forward step by step, methodically. All you need to know to nourish your brain. First of all, we must understand what a cancer is, i.e. its profile. We will study the crime scene where it operates. How to eat well to think well? How to eat well to make But above all, we have to discover its modus operandi: your brain function, to enhance its capacities for attention how it spreads, how it sometimes returns in the form of and concentration? How to maintain memory through a metastases even when the initial tumour has been tailored choice of food? These are some of the questions removed. Then we come to the incredible revelation of Jean-Marie Bourre answers. our investigation… contradicting some widely and firmly held convictions. In conclusion, I will explain how to keep He was one of the first to understand the importance of the danger of cancer at bay. Our discoveries – I promise the contributions of nutrition for cerebral function. you – will help you overcome your fear of that illness.” Knowledge about the chemistry of the brain continues to progress. In this book, Dr. Jean- Marie Bourre focuses on ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Khayat is an internationally the essential needs of the brain. esteemed cancerologist in charge of cancerology at the Hospital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris and Professor Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jean-Marie Bourre is a member of the Academy of Medicine, he directed a research unit at Inserm [the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research] specializing in the chemistry of the brain and its relationships to nutrition, and was one of the scientists who discovered the effects of omega-3 on the brain. He has profoundly renewed the discourse on nutrition. His most recent books are: Laits: vrais et faux dangers; La Chrono-diététique; La Chrono-alimentation du cerveau.

44 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Brice Faraut Hugo Mercier SAUVÉS PAR LA SIESTE...!LES GRANDS À LA CONQUÊTE DU SOMMEIL BIENFAITS DES PETITES SOMMES (The Sleep Revolution (Saved by the Siesta... The Amazing Journey Of A French Businessman) The Great Benefits of a Little Nap) Stock, February 2019, 288 pages Actes Sud, March 2019, 256 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Poland (Amber). ◊ The author’s recent discoveries of new effects A third of the world population struggle to sleep. Let’s associated with siestas have given rise to many Dreem that we would sleep better to live better! articles and interviews in the French and international media The success story of Hugo Mercier began when he came The aim of this book is to help the general public across a radically new approach to sleep: by sending sound understand how siestas work and the remarkable role stimulations to the brain at specific moments during the they can play in overcoming the destructive effects on night, scientists have been able to improve the quality of deep sleep of patients. With a fellow student at university, the brain and the body of a shortage of sleep - for a he launched himself into the development of the first non- siesta is like a night’s sleep in miniature. invasive solution to combat bad sleep. In 2014, the start-up Dreem was born, its first product being an eye-mask to It fulfils all the same functions - hormonal, purifying, wear during the night, which measures brain activity and curative, consolidating and reinvigorating - as well as having sends sound stimulations during deep sleep. This book also the same therapeutic values: it helps us to combat gives an overview of the way in which our sleep functions, sleepiness, pain, depression, weak immunity, stress, the origin of its troubles, and how to tackle them. Our hypertension, excess weight, diabetes and cardiovascular modern society is obsessed with productivity, with disease. But to take advantage of all this we need to be spreading brain diseases damages. For Hugo Mercier, aware of its subtleties: the various types of siesta, the slowing down and improving sleep are one of the key correct body position, the times that are conducive to health issues for mankind. sleeping, the most effective durations, the stages of sleep which heighten awareness, cognitive performance, memory ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Hugo Mercier got his A-levels at 14. and creativity, and the tricks for waking up without feeling Graduate of the École Poly- technique and of Berkeley University sleepy and for getting to sleep quickly. in IT and Mathematics, CEO at just 25, he was elected in 2017 as one of the best 35 European innovators under 35 by MIT, and ABOUT THE AUTHOR:: The neuroscientist Brice Faraut has one of the 30 most influential French people under 30 by Vanity conducted research for several years into the effects of restricting Fair. À la conquête du sommeil is his first book. Discover the sleep as part of a broad European consortium. In Paris in 2014 he TEDx conference about Dreem. was involved in creating the VIFASOM (Vigilance, Fatigue, Sommeil et Santé publique) research team which, as part of the « Hugo Mercier, a sandman 2.0. » Vanity Fair Centre du sommeil et de la vigilance de l’Hôtel-Dieu, has enabled him to continue his research into the effects of sleep deprivation and of people’s capacity to recover from it. He is the author of numerous scientific publications.

45 NUTRITION NUTRITION

Dr Catherine Lacrosnière Dr Kathy Bonan L’ALIMENTATION ANTI-INFLAMMATOIRE – LE MAGNÉSIUM – NATURELLEMENT NATURELLEMENT HEALTHY HEALTHY Anti-inflammatory Diet – Naturally Healthy Magnesium – Naturally Healthy Albin Michel, February 2019, 224 pages Albin Michel, February 2019, 192 pages

◊ Bonus: a quiz to take stock of your personal ◊ Bonus: tests to help identify the signs of a lack of situation, a list of 50 foods that counter magnesium, precise instructions for applying the inflammation and standard recommended menus. treatment adapted to each case, dietary advice to avoid future deficiency in magnesium. Chronic inflammation is ubiquitous: it makes its presence painfully clear in chronic illnesses of the colon, Fatigue, sleep disorders, migraines, memory loss, osteoarthritis and endometriosis, but it can also be depression, weight gain, ageing... Scientific studies show undetectable and insidious. that the common factor of all these ills is a lack of magnesium. They say it plays a role in most illnesses of our times (obesity, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease...). Yet Yet taking magnesium has paradoxical effects: after a ageing, weight gain, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disorders... spectacular improvement, one continues the treatment are not inexorable. The means of treating inflammation are only to see the problems return. Dr Kathy Bonan has available to all: a change of diet, beneficial food correctly discovered that this phenomenon is provoked by our cooked to regain one’s ideal weight, to fight against ageing organism’s poor metabolization of magnesium. So, she and remain in good health. added another mineral, colloidal silica, then observed that this element causes better assimilation of the magnesium. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr Catherine Lacrosnière is a doctor Thanks to this discovery, Dr. Kathy Bonan perfected the and a nutritionist. For several years, she worked with the Human dosage of silica and magnesium, so enabling her to treat Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston, then many everyday problems on a long-term basis. with the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. She has written many books on her speciality (Marabout, Albin Michel, Flammarion, ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Kathy Bonan has been a practicing Hugo New Life). doctor and nutritionist for more than 20 years. She also devotes a large part of her time to scientific research.

46 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue SPECIAL ILLUSTRATED PROJECTS

Phillipe Brenot & Laetitia Coryn Benoist Simmat & Daniel Casanave UNE HISTOIRE DU SEXE L'INCROYABLE HISTOIRE DU VIN (Sex Story) (The Incredible History of Wine) Les Arènes BD, September 2017 192 pages Les Arènes, September 2018, 160 pages

◊ Full English translation available. ◊ 18.000 copies sold. ◊ 50,000 copies sold. ◊ Right sold in: Spain (Norma), Korea (Hanbit Biz), China (Post Wave). ◊ Rights sold in: UK (Penguin), US (Black Dog & Leventhal) Germany (Btb), Spain (Norma), ◊ A global approach to the history of wine. Greece (Diametros), Czech Republic (Paseka), By one of the great specialists in wine economics. Italy (Mondadori), Korea (Darun), Taiwan ◊ (Utopie), Portugual (Gradiva), Poland (Elemental), Wine has always fascinated the world, from its birth in Turkey (Kaplumbaga). Mesopotamia through its globalization today. This book ◊ An illustrated, historical compendium on a is the history of a success story. fascinating subject.

◊ Humour in the service of knowledge. Wine, the beverage of globalization From cavemen to internet dating sites... Sex rules the From Paris to Moscow by way of Mum- bai, Tokyo, Lago world. The graphic novel that conquered the world and Riyad, “wine craving” has become universal. That is the subject of this world history of wine: telling its story in Sex is omnipresent. And yet who knows what it really is images, how a drink from the Middle East managed to and where it comes from? Who genuinely understands it? conquer the entire world over the course of ten centuries. In the whole seven years of training to become a doctor, not a single classroom hour is devoted to this important Bacchus has finally become a graphic novel Hero subject in human life. This is why the anthropologist and sexologist Philippe Brenot has decided to recount this The narrator of this world history is Bacchus, the Roman fascinating story to us. And to show us that it is not only a demigod. With him, the reader revisits images of the natural phenomenon, but also a cultural reality, which has history of humanity: biblically, that of the Flood, the been constructed over the course of history. invention of writing, the feudal world, the great discove- ries, etc. From Noah to Napoleon, by way of Pliny the Sex story is the first history of sexuality in comic book form. Elder and Eleanor of Aquitaine, these major historical And in it we learn all sorts of things, such as the fact that figures cross his path. Cleopatra invented the world’s first vibrator and the reason why the invention of the microscope by the Dutch An adventure in Science and Techno- logy led to masturbation being condemned as evil. The history of wine is also the story of the persistent ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Laetitia Coryn is a highly talented taming of the grapevine. From the first winemakers in 30-year-old author. She spent a year at the Ecole Duperré and Ancient Egypt through the Cistercians, L’His- toire du vin the Atelier de Sèvres and then went on to study 3D animation at goes back in time to explore its science and technology. the Ecole Estienne. Philippe Brenot is a psychiatrist and anthropologist and the director of sexology teaching at the ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Benoist Simmat, a financial Université Paris-Descartes. He publi- shed numerous essays. journalist, is a renown specialist in wine’s global economy and news manager for the Revue du Vin de France. Daniel Casanave is a graphic novel author, writer, and production designer. He has adapted Ubu Roi by Alred Jarry, and contributed to UNE AVENTURE ROCAMBOLESQUE D’ATTILA LE HUN – LE FLÉAU DE DIEU and NERVAL L’INCONSOLÉ.

47 BESTSELLERS & BACKLIST BESTSELLERS & BACKLIST

Trinh Xuan Thuan Claudine Monteil UNE NUIT LES SOEURS BEAUVOIR (A Night) The Beauvoir Sisters L’Iconoclaste, October 2017, 256 pages Calmann Levy, March 2003, 302 pages

◊ 17,000 copies sold. ◊ Full English translation available ◊ Rights sold: Germany (Piper), Italy (Ponte Alle ◊ Rights sold:! Atlantis Forlag (Swedish), Can Grazie), China (CITIC Press), Korea (The Pause), Yayinlari (Turkish), Castelvecchi (Italian), Circe Vietnam (Tre Publihing), Spain (Paidos) (Spanish Worldwide), Langen-Müller (German), People’s Literary Publ.House (Simplified ◊ A wondrous book that is both accessible and Chinese), !Kastaniotis (Greek),! Sicheonmunhak scientific. (Korean), The Seal Press (English worldwide), ◊ A popular and well-known astrophysicist with a Vivaldi (Romanian). large community of followers; a successful author. One was blond, the other was a brunette. One a A magical journey, from dusk to dawn, with one of the painter, the other a writer. One was docile, the other greatest astrophysicists was a rebel. Despite their differences, Hélène and Simone de Beauvoir were united by an indestructible An ode to the night The astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan love. invites us to join him on a scientific journey through the night and starry skies to take in his latest discoveries. His is Neither time nor diverging aesthetic or political opinions an accessible narrative, illustrated by scientific photos. It is a ever managed to shake it. But their correspondence and wondrous book which illustrates the fragility of the planet. memories reveal an equivocal relationship in which love is Poems as well as paintings illuminate the beauty of the tainted with condescendence on Simone’s part, and with cosmos. jealousy on Hélène’s, Hélène being a less talented artist and eternally in the shadow of her world famous elder Seeing star. Trinh Xuan Thuan takes us to the Hawaiian sister. islands in the Pacific Ocean to observe the night sky from one of the most prestigeous astronomy centres, at an Beyond the ambiguities of this attachment, we discover the altitude of 4,000 metres. We are by his side when he uses lives of two women who passionately dreamed of a life the 3-metre-wide Hubble Space Telescope which orbits different from that of their mother and from that of all the above the Earth’s atmosphere. He follows the light of the submissive and virtuous women who came before them – stars to understand the origins of parallel universes; and those women who always spoke in terms of duty. To exist looks for the so-called “blue compact dwarf galaxies” that as women and as artists: such was the parallel struggle of he specialises in, and their young, massive, burning stars the Beauvoir sisters. that emit blue light. We are by his side when he leaves the observatory dome to plunge into the black night and ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Claudine Monteil is a historian focusing stargaze with the naked eye; describing the planets, the on women of the 20th century and a specialist on Beauvoir Sun and the Moon. sisters, whom she knew personally. She is the author of several works including SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, MÉMOIRES D’UNE ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Trinh Xuan Thuan was born in Hanoi in JEUNE FILLE REBELLE (Ed. du Rocher, 1996), and two novelistic 1948. In 1976, he became professor of astronomy at the biographies, LES AMANTS DE LA LIBERTÉ, on Sartre and University of Virginia. In 2000 he published L’INFINI DANS LA Beauvoir (Éditions n°1, 1999) and LES AMANTS DES TEMPS PAUME DE LA MAIN, with Matthieu Ricard (Nil Editions), LE MODERNES on Charlie and Oona Chaplin (Éditions n°1, 2002). COSMOS ET LE LOTUS in 2011 and DÉSIR D’INFINI in 2014 (Gallimard).

« Un ouvrage d’astrophysique d’une grande poésie sur la beauté du cosmos, sa fragilité et, plus encore, ses mystères. » Lire

« Sans jamais tomber dans recueil du jargon scientifique et tout en dessinant en filigrane sa pensée bouddhiste et taoïste, Trinh Xuan Thuan nous propose in fine, avec Une nuit, une lecon d’humanisme. » Le Figaro Littéraire

48 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue Cyril Dion Cyril Dion PETIT MANUEL DE RÉSISTANCE DEMAIN. UN NOUVEAU MONDE EN CONTEMPORAINE MARCHE (A Short Instruction Guide To Daily Resistance) (Tomorrow. A New World in the Making) Actes Sud, May 2018, 160 pages Actes Sud, November 2015, 30 colour illu, 240 pages

◊ Rights sold in: China (Thinkingdom Media Group), Rights sold in: Germany (Kampahausen), Spain Korea (Galapagos), Germany (Reclam) Spain (Seix ◊ (Errata Naturae), Italy (Lindau Edizioni), China Barral). (Thinkingdom Media Group), Taiwan (Faces ◊ Ongoing offer from Italy. Publications), Korea (Hanulim) ◊ 3rd bestselling essay in France. ◊ Over 75,000 copies sold!

◊ In this small incisive and practical book, the author ◊ About the movie: More than 1 million admissions questions the necessary scope for action. in France, now in 27 countries. ◊ Winner of the 2016 César for Best Documentary. ◊ If we continue on our current trajectory, numerous research studies predict that the ◊ The great originality is that it lines examples side- world's population will collapse in a matter of by-side like a system, showing that they already decades. constitute a comprehensive model of society. In the course of two years, Cyril Dion has visited Cyril Dion came across a study which claimed whole eighteen countries and nearly two hundred towns swathes of humankind could die before 2100. promoting, Demain, the successful documentary he produced with the actress, Mélanie Laurent. At each This news should have been in all the headlines but was stage of his journey, the same questions returned: What given only half-hearted coverage... so Cyril Dion has can we actually do? Where do we start? Why does changed strategies: instead of amplifying the chorus of disasters facing the human race, he has opted to depict a action matter, anyway? Isn't it already too late? salutary vision of what the future could be. With the actor and director Mélanie Laurent he travelled through ten It was a period of particularly bad news: the acceleration of countries to see what our world might look like tomorrow global warming, the widening of the inequality gap, the if we implemented a combination of the best solutions explosion in immigration, intolerable levels of waste, the already devised for agriculture, energy, economics, Trump election, and the realization that in the last 40 education and democracy. This journey culminated in this years, 80% of Europe's insects have disappeared and 50% book and the film Demain. A new socio-economic of vertebrates.Scientists highlight the emergency of the project... situation and how little time we have left to react. So can we react to such a catalogue of disasters? Without It is a tale… About the genesis of the film and about the providing definitive answers, Cyril Dion offers a number of many places we visited during the extraordinary journey possibilities for action: individual - as part of our every-day we had to go on for the shooting. The book gives an lives; collective – on a neighborhood, regional, or national insight about the themes of the film and reveals some level; and political – based on examples of large-scale other initiatives. In six great chapters – Feeding Ourselves mobilization that has upset whole countries. The author to Fight Eradication, Achieving the Energetic Transition, An goes further and invites us to reconnect with our inner Economy For Tomorrow, Reinventing Democracy, A New vitality, and live our existences so that everything we do, History of Education, Let's Get Started – Cyril Dion relates from our professional life to our daily chores, can those outstanding meetings with men and women who are contribute to the construction of a world in which we can changing the world. Using text and pictures, this book all live. A world in which we can flourish and prosper and takes us on the path of change and transition, on the path contribute to rebalancing inequality and ecosystems, not at of hope and initiatives, on the track of a “running world”. the expense of others and of nature.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1978, alongside Pierre Rabhi, Cyril Dion is the co-founder of the Colibris movement and the Kaizen journal. In 2014 he published his first collection of poetry, ASSIS SUR LE FIL, (La Table ronde). In 2015, alongside Mélanie Laurent, he wrote and co-directed the film, DEMAIN, which won the 2016 César for best documentary. In 2017, he published his first novel with Actes Sud, IMAGO, awarded the Prix Méditerranée du Premier roman – 2018.

49 BESTSELLERS & BACKLIST Pascal Quignard Daniel Arasse LA HAINE DE LA MUSIQUE HISTOIRES DE PEINTURES The Hatred of Music (Histories of Paintings) Calmann Levy, January 1996 328 pages Denoël, 2004-2012, 230 pages, 45 ill.

◊ Sales: 150 000 copies ◊ Full English translation available ◊ Rights sold in: Italy (Einaudi) / Portugal (KKYM) / ◊ Rights sold in:! EDT (Italian), !El Cuenco de Plata! Japan (Hakusui Sha) / China – Simplified (Spanish Worldwide), !Franz (Korean), !Henan UP characters (Peking University Press) / Turkey (Simplified Chinese) Narodowa Biblioteka (Polish), (Doruk Yayinlari), Romania (Editura Art) Rocco Editora !(Portuguese, Brazil), Suisei-Sha (Japanese) Studentska Zaloba (Slovenian)!, Yale UP An overview of six centuries of the history of painting, (English Worldwide). from the invention of perspective to the disappearance A surprising and fascinating essay that guides us of the figurative. through a bright analysis on music, our relation to sounds and to silence. In addition to addressing key issues in art history, this book also discusses painters, themes and specific paintings. This book is composed of ten little tracts that calls on “the ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel Arasse is a French Art Historian connections between music and the pain from the specialized in Renaissance and Italian art. His previous books constantly surrounding sounds”. It may seem paradoxical include Le Détail, pour une histoire rapprochée de la peinture from Pascal Quignard, in whose work music has a great (Details, a Close-Up History of Painting, Flammarion, 1992), significance. To explain this paradox Quignard analyses Léonard de Vinci (Hazan, 1997), L'annonciation italienne (Hazan, several founding myths, among which Saint Peter whose 1999) and On n'y voit rien (Take a Closer Look, Denoël, 2000). remorse was called up by a rooster’s crow or the sirens’ song in Ulysses’ odyssey; but also the very origins of Daniel Arasse instruments, from their name to their production. He ON N’Y VOIT RIEN chooses the example of the zither, or khitara, made out of (Take a Closer Look) tortoise shell, sheep guts and cow skin, just like Ulysses’ Denoël, 2000- 2005, 168 pages60 ill. killing bow. From the darkness of the first men’s cavern to the darkest pages of our history, the author shows us how music can be a source of pain. It can even become a slavery tool for. He reminds us that in the death camps during the Second World War, prisoners went in gas chambers listening to music. Some conductors who came back from the camps, like Simon Laks, but also other people who had always loved music, like Primo Levi, have explained how music has become a suffering or related to the memory of this suffering. Thus, “the phrase Hatred of ◊ Sales: 175 000 copies music is used to express how loathsome music can become even to who loved it most”. ◊ Rights sold:in Turkey (Metis) / Portugal (KKYM) / Brazil (Editora 34) / Bulgaria (Iztok-Zapad) / Italy (Einaudi) / USA – WEL (Princeton University ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pascal Quignard was born in 1948. He Press) / Japan (Hakusui Sha)!/ China – Simplified won the Prix Goncourt in 2002 with LES OMBRES ERRANTES (Grasset). He is the author of numerous novels, including TOUS characters (Peking University Press) / Poland LES MATINS DU MONDE (1991, Gallimard), TERRASSE À (Studio Wydawnicze Dodo), Russia ROME (winner of the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie In six short narratives that are presented as Française in 2000, Gallimard) and VILLA AMALIA (2006, Gallimard), and essays : PETITS TRAITÉS (1981, 1983, 1984, investigations into the evidence of the visible, from Clivages), LA LEÇON DE MUSIQUE (1987, Hachette), LE NOM Velazquez to Titian, from Bruegel to Tintoretto, Daniel SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE (1993, P.O.L), LE SEXE ET Arasse proposes six art-appreciation adventures. L’EFFROI (1994, Gallimard). Passionately fond of music since his childhood, he plays cello and has founded the Baroque Opera The one thing they all have in common is that in each case, and Theatre Festival in Versailles. the painting reveals its power by dazzling us, and proving that nothing that it shows is visible.

50 Lester Agency / Spring 2019 / Non Fiction Catalogue HIGHLIGHTS ...... 3 DECEPTION ...... 16 ANDRÉ COMTE-SPONVILLE ...... (DIR.) JEAN-CHRISTIAN PETITFILS ...... CONTRE LA PEUR ...... 3 LES ÉNIGMES DE L’HISTOIRE DU MONDE .... 17 MICHEL ONFRAY ...... (DIR.) SYLVAIN GOUGENHEIM ...... SAGESSE ...... 3 LES EMPIRES MÉDIÉVAUX ...... 17 AMIN MAALOUF ...... ROBIN LAURANCE ...... LE NAUFRAGE DES CIVILISATIONS ...... 4 COCONUT ...... 18 BORIS CYRULNIK ...... VICTOR BATTAGGION & THIERRY SARMANT ...... LA NUIT J’ÉCRIRAI DES SOLEILS ...... 4 HISTOIRE MONDIALE DES COURS ...... 18 GRÉGOIRE LOIS ...... BIOGRAPHIES ...... 19 QUAND LES OISEAUX NE CHANTENT PLUS .... 5 ARNAUD MAILLARD ...... ARTHUR LOCHMANN ...... MERCI, KARL ! ...... 19 LA VIE SOLIDE ...... 5 INGRID MÉCHOULAM ...... FRANÇOIS TADDEI ...... SOUS LE SOLEIL DE SAGAN ...... 19 APPRENDRE AU XXIE SIÈCLE ...... 6 ALEXANDRE SARGOS ...... JEAN MICHEL JARRE ...... TOLKIEN À VINGT ANS ...... 19 RODÉO MÉLANCOLIQUE ...... 6 JEAN-PAUL BLED ...... JEAN ABITBOL ...... MARLÈNE DIETRICH ...... 20 VOIX DE FEMMES ...... 7 MARIE-HÉLÈNE BAYLAC ...... ALAIN BRACONNIER ...... AGATHA CHRISTIE ...... 20 COURAGE RÊVONS ...... 7 PIERRE VASARELY & PHILIPPE DANA ...... LITERARY REPORTAGE ...... 8 VASARELY, UNE SAGA DANS LE SIÈCLE ...... 21 ÉRIC VUILLARD ...... FRANCE FOOTBALL ...... LA GUERRE DES PAUVRES ...... 8 MBAPPÉ TOUT GAGNER ...... 21 YSEULT WILLIAMS ...... ROBERT MURPHY ...... LA SPLENDEUR DES BRUNHOFF ...... 8 PAUL RICARD ...... 22 REBECCA BENHAMOU ...... MAREK HALTER ...... L’HORIZON ...... 9 JE RÊVAIS DE CHANGER LE MONDE ...... 22 FANNY CHIARELLO ...... CULTURAL ESSAYS ...... 23 A HAPPY WOMAN ...... 9 DENIS GROZDANOVITCH ...... CURRENT TOPICS ...... 10 DANDYS ET EXCENTRIQUES ...... 23 FRÉDÉRIC PIERUCCI & MATTHIEU ARON ...... SERGE SANCHEZ ...... LE PIÈGE AMÉRICAIN ...... 10 LE HOMARD DE FLAUBERT ...... 23 NATHALIE SCHUCK & AVA DJAMSHIDI ...... PIERRE KLOSSOSWKI ...... MADAME LA PRÉSIDENTE ...... 11 SUR PROUST ...... 24 AMÉLIE POINSSOT ...... MICHEL CRÉPU ...... DANS LA TÊTE DE VIKTOR ORBÁN ...... 11 BECKETT, 29 JUILLET 82, 11H30 ...... 24 BÉRENGÈRE VIENNOT ...... GUILLAUME MARTIN ...... LA LANGUE DE TRUMP ...... 12 SOCRATE À VÉLO ...... 25 JULIA CAGÉ ...... NATHAN WACHTEL ...... LE PRIX DE LA DÉMOCRATIE ...... 12 PARADIS DU NOUVEAU MONDE ...... 25 RAFFAELE ALBERTO VENTURA ...... PIERRE BAYARD ...... LA GUERRA DI TUTTI ...... 13 LA VÉRITÉ SUR DIX PETITS NÈGRES ...... 26 RAFFAELE ALBERTO VENTURA ...... ANTONY CUMMINS ...... TEORIA DELLA CLASSE DISAGIATA ...... 13 OLD JAPAN ...... 26 HISTORY ...... 14 NATURE ...... 27 DERMOT TURING ...... BAPTISTE MORIZOT ...... THREE NATIONS. ONE PROBLEM...... 14 SUR LA PISTE ANIMALE ...... 27 ÉRIC BRANCA ...... MARC JEANSON & CHARLOTTE FAUVE ...... LES ENTRETIENS OUBLIÉS D’HITLER ...... 14 LE BOTANISTE ...... 27 BENOÎT RONDEAU ...... EMANUELE COCCIA ...... ÊTRE SOLDAT D’HITLER ...... 15 MÉTAMORPHOSES ...... 28 ÉRIC ALARY ...... LAURENCE PAOLI ...... NOUVELLE HISTOIRE DE L’OCCUPATION ..... 15 ZOOS ...... 28 JEAN-CHARLES FOUCRIER ...... ART / AESTHETICS ...... 29 LA GUERRE DES SCIENTIFIQUES ...... 16 LYDIE SALVAYRE ...... CHRISTOPHER HALE ...... 51 BESTSELLERS & BACKLIST MARCHER JUSQU’AU SOIR ...... 29 DEVENIR FEMME, DE MÈRE EN FILLE ...... 40 BRIGITTE BENKEMOUN ...... EDUCATION & PARENTING ...... 41 JE SUIS LE CARNET DE DORA MAAR ...... 29 SUZANNE VALLIÈRES ...... STÉPHANE LAMBERT ...... GUIDE DE SURVIE POUR PARENTS ...... 41 VISIONS DE GOYA ...... 30 DIDIER PLEUX ...... DOMINIQUE FERNANDEZ ...... DÉVELOPPER LA CONCENTRATION ...... 41 LE PEINTRE ABANDONNÉ ...... 30 PR. MARCEL RUFO & PR. PHILIPPE DUVERGER ...... SYLVIE AUBENAS & CLAUDE SCHOPP ...... QUI COMMANDE ICI ? ...... 42 L’ORIGINE DU MONDE. VIE DU MODÈLE ...... 31 SONIA KRIEF ...... PASCAL BRIOIST ...... J'ACCUEILLE MON BÉBÉ ...... 42 LES AUDACES DE LEONARD DE VINCI ...... 31 SELF-HELP ...... 43 SOCIAL SCIENCES ...... 32 ISABELLE CROUZET ...... DIDIER ERIBON ...... LA FORCE DU SOURIRE ...... 43 RETOUR À REIMS ...... 32 AGNÈS AUSTRALE ...... DIDIER ERIBON ...... LE YOGA AU LIT ...... 43 ÉCRITS SUR LA PSYCHANALYSE ...... 32 HEALTH & WELL BEING ...... 44 TRUE STORIES/ MEMOIRS ...... 33 PR DAVID KHAYAT ...... KAUSALYA SANKAR & GUILLAUME VENETITIAY ...... L’ENQUÊTE VÉRITÉ ...... 44 AU NOM DE SANKAR ...... 33 JEAN-MARIE BOURRE ...... FRANÇOIS HEISBOURG ...... LE PROGRAMME POUR BIEN NOURRIR ...... 44 CET ÉTRANGE NAZI ...... 33 BRICE FARAUT ...... JIHYUN PARK & ANA CHAI ...... SAUVÉS PAR LA SIESTE...... 45 DEUX CORÉENNES ...... 34 HUGO MERCIER ...... AMATALLAH HASSAN ABDULMUGHNI ...... À LA CONQUÊTE DU SOMMEIL ...... 45 LA REINE DE SANAA ...... 34 NUTRITION ...... 46 SCIENCE ...... 35 DR CATHERINE LACROSNIÈRE ...... PASCAL PICQ ...... L’ALIMENTATION ANTI-INFLAMMATOIRE . 46 L’INTELLIGENCE ARTICIFIELLE ...... 35 DR KATHY BONAN ...... 46 SÉBASTIEN BALIBAR ...... LE MAGNÉSIUM ...... 46 SAVANT CHERCHE REFUGE ...... 35 ÉRIC VIVIER & MARC DAËRON ...... SPECIAL ILLUSTRATED PROJECTS ...... 47 L’IMMUNOTHÉRAPIE DES CANCERS ...... 36 PHILLIPE BRENOT & LAETITIA CORYN ...... SÉBASTIEN BOHLER ...... UNE HISTOIRE DU SEXE ...... 47 LE BUG HUMAIN ...... 36 BENOIST SIMMAT & DANIEL CASANAVE ...... L'INCROYABLE HISTOIRE DU VIN ...... 47 POPULAR SCIENCE ...... 37 PERRINE ROGIEZ-THUBERT ...... BESTSELLERS & BACKLIST ...... 48 L’AVEU DES INDICES ...... 37 TRINH XUAN THUAN ...... ÉRIC BOUHIER ...... UNE NUIT ...... 48 LE JUSTE MILIEU ...... 37 CLAUDINE MONTEIL ...... CLARA GRIMA ...... LES SOEURS BEAUVOIR ...... 48 JE FAIS DES MATHS ...... 38 CYRIL DION ...... VIVIANE LALANDE ...... PETIT MANUEL DE RÉSISTANCE ...... 49 LE MONDE A DES RACINES CARRÉES ...... 38 CYRIL DION ...... S.M. DENHAM ...... DEMAIN...... 49 AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE ...... 39 PASCAL QUIGNARD ...... NORMAN FERGUSON ...... LA HAINE DE LA MUSIQUE ...... 50 PROJECT APOLLO ...... 39 DANIEL ARASSE ...... HISTOIRES DE PEINTURES ...... 50 PSYCHOLOGY ...... 40 DANIEL ARASSE ...... CHRISTOPHE HAAG ...... ON N’Y VOIT RIEN ...... 50 LA CONTAGION ÉMOTIONNELLE ...... 40 MALVINE ZALCBERG ......

52

Anastasia Lester Founder & Director & Agent SAS Lester Literary Agency & Associates

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